768 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of society, it unfortunately happens that what is deemed most 

 honorable is most profitable. There may be exceptions, but 

 as society is at present constituted this is to be regarded as a 

 rule. The village merchant — sometimes, it is true, by dis- 

 honest means — realizes his thousands, while the poor farmer is 

 running almost as rapidly into debt. The manufacturer, and 

 broker, and even the mechanic, " put money in their purses." 

 This is seen and understood by the sons of farmers, and their 

 early prepossessions against a farmer's life are but too often 

 streno-thened and confirmed, when from the admiring contem- 

 plation of these more lucrative employments they withdraw 

 their bedizened eyes to fix them upon the poverty, wretched 

 destitution and squalor, even, of home. But science, and the 

 o-eneral diflusion of useful knowledge, will be found a ready 

 corrective of this, at present, great national evil. Let the edu- 

 cation of the young farmer be such as will tend to drav/ his 

 affections towards the endearing and ennobling objects of rural 

 life, rather than to divert them ; let them behold the wealthy 

 and intelligent engaged in the pursuits of agriculture, sur- 

 rounded by the elegancies and embellishments of polished life, 

 and his mind will at once derive happiness from a pursuit with 

 which he now beholds himself identified, and which, conse- 

 quently, he contemplates with satisfaction and delight. 



January, 1853. 



