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tnres/ or reposing in the grateful shades ; I should derive 

 more pleasure than from all the sculptures and pictures 

 that ever crowded palace halls and palace walls. 



Consequently, while men pay their five, ten, twenty, 

 fifty thousands of dollars for single works of art, should 

 not he who indulges his aesthetic tastes in a generous 

 farm, reckon as of something worth, the exquisite and 

 constantly renewed pleasure he derives from it ? and, if 

 he looks so exclusively or so greatly to the gratification 

 of taste in his methods of farming, should he not remem- 

 ber, when the pecuniary returns prove to be small, that 

 the less satisfactory works of art are simply and only a 

 dead weight upon the pocket ? 



Let us also bear in mind that refined enjoyment can be 

 derived from a farm by those who can neither purchase 

 costly works of art, nor indulge in expensive methods of 

 agriculture. One's farm may be small, and his means 

 may be limited, but if he exercise wisdom in concentrat- 

 ing and managing such expenditures of toil and money 

 as he can bestow upon it, he too will have his share of 

 true enjoyment, as he will also secure his measure of 

 thrift. 



Finally, we would suggest that each proprietor of a 

 farm should read and think about his calling and his 

 farm. There is, or has been, a senseless prejudice among 

 certain farmers against books and treatises devoted to 

 their calling ; a vast deal of " cant, " and not a little at- 

 tempted concealment of mental sluggishness, by an out- 

 cry against " book-farmers " and " book-farming. " If there 

 is any man or set of men in danger of trusting too en- 

 tirely to books, and discarding practice in their agricul- 

 tural operations, then let some one whose methods are 

 faultless, and whose success is great, exhort them to drop 



