8 



The philosopher Bolingbroke was never so happy, Pope tells 

 us, as when among the hay-makers on his farm. 



And not alone in the refinements of rural life will there be 

 an interest. Farmers hold the world together. There may 

 be years when they seem to be of less consequence. Trade 

 or manufactures may allure some of them for a time. But 

 there will ever be latent in every man's breast a hope to end 

 his days on a farm. Then we need not fear but that there 

 will always be farmers in Norfolk County. Every diminution 

 of its territory by which some of its oldest and most glorious 

 farms are consigned to the city to be covered with dwellings, 

 will but make those which remain to be more affectionately 

 regarded. And in a county like this, whose territory is grow- 

 ing smaller every year, the farmers can in many ways sub- 

 serve their best good by a union for the support of this So- 

 ciety. How otherwise shall be controverted what I have so 

 often heard said in other States of the Union, that the old 

 farms of New England, more particularly of Massachusetts, 

 are passing out of the ownership of the descendants of the 

 families who first cleared the fields and fenced them, and 

 planted the orchards, and builded the barns and the farm- 

 houses — and planted the shade trees which overshadow 

 them. 



Alas ! it is too true, as any one can know who travels 

 through the Massachusetts towns, not on railroads, but by the 

 old town and county roads. When I have been driving about 

 the country, I have paused more than once to contemplate the 

 desolated appearance, the forlorn aspect of some of these an- 

 cient farm-houses. They were not, perhaps, what the archi- 

 tect of these days would call beautiful, yet they were like the 

 houses which Socrates would have called beautiful.- He 

 reasoned on the subject thus: — "Should not he, who pur- 



oses to have a house such as it ought to be, contrive that it 

 may be most pleasant, and, at the same time, most useful to 

 live in .-* " This being admitted, he said, " Is it not then pleas- 

 ant to have it cool in summer and warm in winter ? " When 

 his hearers had assented to this, he said, " In houses, then, 



