48 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



do business in Boston, and live in tlie country, icn, fiOcen, 

 even twenty miles off, Tiiis is an advantage to liim, we readily 

 sec. It purifies and elevates his life, by the daily influence of 

 rural sights and sounds. Tlie freshness and beauty of Nature, 

 glittering with morning dew, prepare him for his daily toils; 

 and when these are over, he is soothed and refreshed by the 

 sweet influences of sunset and evening. It is an advantage for 

 his children ; for they arc saved from the dangers of city life ; 

 they gain health and strength from pure air, regular habits, 

 and invigoiating exercise ; and they learn a thousand useful 

 things that books and schools cannot teach. But this is not all. 

 No man will be willing to take tvv-^o journeys in the cars, 

 every secular day of his life, unless he is fond of the country ; 

 and this is but another way of saying that he is fond of farming 

 or gardening. He buys land, enough for a garden, if not a 

 farm; he builds a house as tasteful and convenient as his 

 means will allow ; and to the decoration and improvement of 

 his place he devotes his leisure time, and a reasonable propor- 

 tion of the earnings of his business. Tliis new demand for 

 these surburban retreats causes the price of land to go up with 

 balloon-like rapidity. Many a farmer wakes up some morning 

 and finds himself rich, because his farm may be profitably cut 

 up into house-lots. In the meantime, the energetic merchant 

 or trader carries on his farm, or cultivates his garden, with the 

 vigor and enterprise which he puts into his business; and 

 having the advantage of capital, derived from other sources 

 than the land itself, the union of the two soon begins to tell. 

 His barns will be the largest and the best arranged ; his cattle 

 the sleekest and finest ; his fences the neatest ; his garden the 

 trimmest. His Alderncy heifers, his Suffolk pigs, his Bartlett 

 pears, his Baldwin apples, will take prizes at agricultural fairs. 

 The primitive furmcr, — native to the soil, — whose father and 

 grandfather were farmers before him, — begins wilh looking 

 with distrust u[)on his cockney neighbor. He shakes his head 

 at his improved implements, his mineral manures, his scientific 

 farming ; he predicts that he will never see his money back 

 again ; but as the seasons go on, and the returns vindicate the 

 judiciousness of the new methods, he ceases to ilisparage and 

 begins to imitate. Ilis somewhat torpid energies are quickened 

 and animated by the wholesome example that is set him ; his 



