HON. MR. FOOTE'S ADDRESS. 145 



and taken in the open air : the second, food, food plain and 

 simple, but nutricious, and in sufficient quantity; and third, 

 rest, rest taken at proper intervals, and during those hours 

 which the Creator has indicated for that purpose, in the primary- 

 divisions of time into day and night. And where is it possible 

 for these conditions of health and of vigor, not to say of comfort 

 and of happiness, to be so fully met as in the life of the farmer % 

 Called forth by the cares of his occupation at the dawn of day, 

 the active exercises and the pure invigorating breezes of the 

 morning, give to him a relish quite unknown to the man of seden- 

 tary life, for the plain and homely, perhaps, but fresh and 

 wholesome provisions of his table, of which he partakes with 

 the greater pleasure from the fact that they are the immediate 

 rewards of his own honest industry. With strength renewed 

 for the renewal of his toil, he " goeth forth unto his work, and 

 to his labors until the evening," when, alike prepared for the en- 

 joyment of repose, "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," 

 comes without wooing to his pillow, repairs his wasted energies, 

 and fits him to resume the routine of his daily employments. 

 This very regularity of the farmer's habits, in the taking of ex- 

 ercise, food and rest, cannot fail to exert upon his physical na- 

 ture the most salutary influence ; and to this character of his 

 habits, in connection with that cheerfulness of spirit, which it 

 is the tendency of every scene around him to inspire, it is doubt- 

 less owing, that we ever find him the image of health and vig- 

 or, his complexion fresh and ruddy, his step firm and elastic, 

 and all his physical powers in their fullest development. And 

 these are just the results which reason would lead us to anticipate, 

 when we consider the human organization in its manifest adap- 

 tation to the outward circumstances of our being. The lungs, 

 that artificial life-bellows, if I may so denominate it, whose un- 

 ceasing office is to fan the vital flame ; was adapted by the Great 

 Artificer to the pure air of heaven, in which the farmer " lives, 

 moves and has his being," and all the human frame-work ad- 

 justed to those ever-varied exercises of the field, which give to it 

 compactness, symmetry and strength, and which qualify man 

 for the fullest enjoyment of all the innocent pleasures for which 

 his nature is fitted. 

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