28 AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED 



acre. Now, if a farmer, upon a hundred acres of land, 

 can save fourteen hundred dollars a year, to buy super- 

 fluities for his family, educate his children, and to add to 

 his capital, he must, at the end of twenty years, be either 

 a rich man or an improvident one ; and if improvident, 

 he will probably remain poor, be his employment what it 

 may. But suppose the nett income of a farm should be 

 but half, or a quarter of the sum we have assumed — that 

 is, $7, or $ 3,50, an acre ; — even this income, prudently 

 managed, will in a few years place the possessor in inde- 

 pendent circumstances. 



§ 2. »^5 promotive of Health and the Developement of 



the Mind, 



The grand requisites to health, or rather for the pre- 

 vention of diseases, are declared by Dr. Johnson, one of 

 the highest medical authorities of the age, to be — exercise 

 in the open air — temperance in our living — moderation in 

 our pleasures and enjoyments — restraint on our passions — 

 limitation to our desires^ and limitation to our ambition.* 



What employment is there in life, so highly favorable 

 to all the benign influences of exercise — so conducive to 

 repose and tranquillity of mind — and which has so few 

 temptations to intemperate enjoyments — as that of agri- 

 culture. And the only ambition which is likely to ob- 

 trude upon the farmer, and this is in no wise, we believe, 

 prejudicial to the health either of his body or his mind — 

 is the ambition of increasing the prolific properties of the 

 soil, whereby he may benefit himself and society. Polit- 

 ical ambition, which, like a cancer, is apt to prey upon 

 and corrupt the mortal upon whom it fixes its fangs, abides 

 not upon the farm ; at least it should not abide there — for 

 that farmer must be either weak or unfortunate who is wil- 

 ling to give up the certain and tranquil pleasures of a rural 

 home, for the vexing, precarious, and corrupting cares 

 and responsibilities of political eminence, otherwise than 

 as duty may require it at his hands. " Horticulture and 

 agriculture are better fitted for the promotion of health 



* Economy of Health. 



