20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ill that department since the time of Alexander Hamilton. 

 The example of such men is worthy of imitation. The teach- 

 ings of such men are worthy of profound study. 



I have drawn for you a picture of New England agricul- 

 ture from my stand-point, sketched a view with my pencil, 

 given you a look through my spectacles, and now with your 

 permission I will close with a few parting words of advice. 



A contented mind is a continual feast. What is to hinder 

 the New England farmer from a continual enjoyment of this 

 banquet? He lives in one of the best spots on the earth, 

 pursues the most healthy employment, enjoys the greatest 

 freedom from care, anxiety and peril, is less dependent on 

 his fellows, and more intimately connected with nature in his 

 daily walks, than any other class of men. The true and only 

 way for man to attain true contentment is to school his wants 

 to his natural needs, and restrain the gratification of all 

 others to proper limits, to graduate his desires to the means 

 he possesses to gratify them in a proper manner. 



Man's absolute necessities are few and small, but his con- 

 veniences are bounded only by his al)ility to gratify them. 

 The greater share of one's happiness, if he has any worth 

 being called by that name, comes from his home. If that is 

 pleasant in its inmates and its surroundings, it is a constant 

 supply. 



Let every man that owns a spot large enough for a dom- 

 icile, be it a cottage or a palace, see that it is ornamented 

 with flowers, surrounded with shrubbery, decked with what- 

 ever tends to enhance the pleasure, and furnished with all the 

 conveniences that tend to lighten the burdens of her who has 

 joined her fortunes with the man of her choice, and whose 

 pleasures are all centered in home. 



Let each farmer make it a place that he prefers to the tav- 

 ern, the store or the gossiping street ; a place where he can 

 daily enjoy the smiles of her who left her old home in some 

 country farm-house to fit up a new one, where he can hear 

 and appreciate the prattle of his little ones clustered here, 

 and gambolling in all their sportive innocence, and where, 

 when the labors of the day are done, the whole circle can 

 heartily join in the song, "Be it ever so humble, there's no 

 X)lace like home." 



