140 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



relaxation to the farmer. " He works," it has been said, " as 

 hard as he can in the summer, and in the winter, a great deal 

 harder." And the good old fashioned neighborhood parties of 

 our childhood, so promotive of fraternal sympathies, have been 

 banished from the circle of rural life, and find a place only in 

 the " pleasant memories" of other days. 



But more than this. We "laboring people" of New Eng- 

 land do not take time even to eat. We are the only people, I 

 believe, on the face of the earth, blessed with a sufficiency of 

 food, that are so parsimonious of minutes in this respect. Our 

 food is bolted, not masticated, to the manifest injury of the di- 

 gestive organs, and, when we have thus replenished the stom- 

 ach, we hasten to our toil, to recover, if possible, the moments 

 wasted in this exercise. And what is the result of these and 

 collateral abuses of the compound nature 1 An enfeebled race 

 of men and women. We look in vain, among the rising gen- 

 eration, for the robust constitutions, and promise of the health 

 and long life, that blessed our ancestors; and we shall continue 

 to look in vain while the work of two years is crowded into one. 

 In placing man here, it was no part of the Divine plan, that he 

 should thus overreach himself, that he should commit moral, 

 intellectual and physical suicide. If God gave him broad acres 

 to cultivate, he also gave him a mind and body to improve, and 

 he gave him time enough, when properly allotted, to do both. 



Of all active employments, farming is, perhaps, most conge- 

 nial to self-culture. In some mechanical pursuits, success often 

 depends on the concentration of the mind to a single point. The 

 nice calculations that enter into a new invention, or an improve- 

 ment of an old one, forbid attention to any subject out of that 

 particular line. But it is otherwise with the farmer. There 

 are many hours, in which he may reflect and meditate on topics 

 foreign to his business, without impeding it. He can carry into 

 the field, and digest the contents of a valuable book, while turn- 

 ing the furrow or cultivating the crop, and feel refreshed by the 

 exercise. And if, as 'tis said, "an empty brain is the devil's 

 workshop," where all sorts of mischief are forged, he is the 

 wisest man, and in the safest condition, who goes to his daily 

 employ well provided with matter for profitable thought. 



