AS AN EMPLOYMENT. 27 



§ 2. As promotive of health, and the useful develope- 

 ment of the mmd ; 



§ 3. As a means of individual happiness, the great 

 pursuit of life ; 



§ 4. As a means of enabling us to fulfil the high ob- 

 jects of our being ; — of performing the duties which we 

 owe to our families, our country, and our God. 



§ 1. As a Means of obtaining Wealth, 



Adequate to our wants, and to all the beneficial pur- 

 poses of life, agriculture certainly holds a pre-eminent 

 rank. With that industry and prudence, which Provi- 

 dence seems to have made essential to human happiness, 

 and that knowledge which w^e all have the means of ac- 

 quiring, its gains are certain, substantial, and sufficient — 

 sufficient for ourselves, for the good of our children, and 

 the healthful tone of society. It does not, we admit, af- 

 ford that prospect of rapid gain, which some other em- 

 ployments hold out to cupidity, and which too often dis- 

 tract and bewilder the mind, and unsettle for life the 

 steady business habits of early manhood ; yet neither 

 does it, on the other hand, involve the risks, to fortune 

 and to morals — to health and to happiness — with which 

 the schemers and speculators of the day, who would live 

 by the labor of others, seem ever to be environed. Great 

 wealth begets great care and anxiety, and is too apt to 

 engender habits unfriendly alike to the possessor and to 

 society. Wealth that comes without labor, is often wast- 

 ed without thought ; but that which is acquired by toil 

 and industry, is preserved with care, and expended with 

 judgement. The farmer, therefore, wiio secures an an- 

 nual and increasing income by his industry, though it be 

 small in the outset, is much more likely to become ulti- 

 mately rich, not only in dollars and cents, but in all the 

 substantial elements of happiness, than the man of almost 

 any other profession in life. 



We have shown that farm lands have been made to 

 produce an annual income of thirty dollars an acre ; and 

 have said, that by good husbandry they may certainly be 

 made to produce a nett income of fourteen dollars an 



