30 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



(let him try the experiment in his own farm. Let him expend 

 a little taste in the matter of his fences, in planting now and 

 then a shade tree, in clearing up old baulks of their brush, and 

 giving up to his wife and daughters a corner of his garden, 

 instead of planting it with cabbages and potatoes, and he will 

 ere long see his own taste reflected in more than one of the 

 farms in his neighborhood. Let me tlien insist, in the first 

 place, that every farmer should cultivate habits of neatness and 

 order in the management of his house, his garden, and his 

 farm. It will not only make liim a better citizen and a better 

 neighbor, but a better and a happier man. And above all, it 

 will make him a better husband and father. It cliimes in with 

 the natural taste for refinement and neatness of his wife and 

 daughters. It tends to keep his sons at home by making the 

 business of husbandry more attractive, and sheds over his home 

 and his whole establishment the spirit of harmony and content 

 which he would look for in vain outside of the magic circle 

 within which lie lives. Even in .an economical point of view, 

 this sul)ject has an importance that one is too apt to overlook. 



It is common with luany to regard every thing ornamental in 

 farming as something beyond their sphere — to be indulged in 

 only by fancy farmers — whereas nothing is a greater mistake. 

 In judging of the value of a farm, men look at its fitting up 

 quite as much as upon the mere crops it can produce. 



Let no man say that this may all be very well for those who 

 can afford it, but that he has so much to do he cannot find the 

 time or means for indulging in matters of taste and refinement. 

 Not time ! Can't afford ! If he would only stop a moment, 

 and reflect upon it, he would see that he could not afford not 

 to do it. Suppose he should devote a spare half hour of a 

 foggy morning, or a lowery afternoon, now and then, to break- 

 ing up for his fire the old wheels and broken carts and sleds 

 that lie scattered about his premises, or in splitting up for use 

 the knots and pieces of old logs in his door yard, or in raking 

 up the dirt and chips which accumulate there, into piles for 

 burning, or compost to lay around his trees, — suppose in this 

 way, a sweet green turf should take the place of the rubbish, 

 the burdocks, and the poison hemlock that gives such a sickly 

 look and smell to the roadsides and door yards of so many 

 farmers, and he should then offer his farm for sale in the mar- 



