INTELLECT IN FARMING. 71 



as systematically as is freight in a ship. The difference between 

 a wise man and a fool is, the one holds and directs his thoughts, 

 the thoughts of the other float along at random, shifting from 

 one thing to another with every varying scene. 



No one has a better opportunity to study the great book of 

 nature, and learn its various sciences, than the farmer. His 

 business leads him to commune with nature daily. She reads 

 him manifold lessons of wisdom, and if he will only give atten- 

 tion to her teachings he must become wise ; but the trouble is 

 to arouse and fix the attention. We fear too many farmers 

 plod along after their oxen, digesting ideas as lazily and inter- 

 mittingly as the cattle chew their cud. The solitary life of 

 the husbandman, thougli offering many advantages for the 

 cultivation of the natural sciences and the moral sense, is not 

 favorable to quick and active thought. It wants the stimulus 

 of the contact with other minds. If a man wishes to keep his 

 mind polished and keen he must live in society. The factory- 

 boy will give and parry a dozen jokes while the plough-boy is 

 comprehending one. The only mode of compensating for this 

 defect in rural life is to commune with other minds freely 

 through the medium of newspapers and books. These may 

 be had on the farm as well as in the village and city, and 

 though they may not make the reader as polished and bright 

 as does personal contact, still the farmer may in this way 

 become a strong and vigorous thinker. Polish is often ac- 

 quired at the expense of thought. Among the yeomanry we 

 do not look for the polish of the city lawyer, but we do expect 

 strength both of muscle and mind ; and as the braAvny, strong 

 arm can only be acquired by exercise, so the strong intellect 

 can only be attained by habits of action and patient thinking. 

 As the sluggish thought in rural life is great, the effort to resist 

 it must be all the greater. In spite of all the disadvantages of 

 their isolated situation, we find many farmers close thinkers, 

 not only on matters connected with their occupation, but on the 

 knotty points of politics, metaphysics and theology. Such per- 

 sons do not allow their thoughts to drift along like logs on a 

 sluggish stream, now stopped by an overhanging bush, now run- 

 ning into a cove, and anon slowly turning in an eddy. Their 

 minds are kept constantly tuned up to concert pitch. The self- 



