THOROUGH BRED STOCK. 21 



gather about the factory villages and towns a little circle of farms 

 from which the daily supplies for the table can be furnished. In 

 addition to these material benefits, the manufacturer or mechanic 

 who cultivates his farm or little patch, is more likely to improve 

 his health by a change of employments, to expand his mind by 

 an observance of the laws of nature as they affect the growth of 

 animals and vegetables, and to acquire that love for outdoor pur- 

 suits which will enable him, in the decline of life, to enjoy them 

 as pleasures which meet with no obstruction even from old age, 

 and seem to approach nearest to those of true wisdom. There 

 is scarcely any one who does not sometimes please himself in 

 the prospect of rural labors and engagements ; who does not 

 hope, some day, to adorn his garden or cultivate his own farm, 

 and to sit down, in repose, under his own vine and fruit trees, 

 and the greatest persons, of every age, have found, in the shade 

 of retirement and agricultural occupations, that sweet satisfaction 

 which they had failed to experience amid the splendors of a court, 

 or in the triumphs of victories, or in amassment of wealth. And 

 how much more reasonable, instead of waiting until they have 

 become rich, and have exhausted aft the well-springs of youth, 

 to combine the pursuits of farming, or of horticulture, with their 

 ordinary avocations, and thus ameliorate the harshness of mere 

 gainful toil, by the soothing attentions required by mother earth. 

 There is a great deal of sentimental puerility afloat about the 

 love of nature, and its ability to afford, at all times, a permanent 

 and pure delight, but common experience shows that, to exchange 

 the bustle of business and the gay amusements of society, for 

 fields and woods, silence and solitude, is not sufficient to insure a 

 life of contentment, and it is necessary for all who meditate a 

 retreat, ultimately, from the cares of business or gaiety of the 

 world, to cultivate, beforehand, those qualities and habits which 

 may add life and interest to the calm prospects and silent exhi- 

 bitions of rural nature. This is done now in America, and espe- 

 cially in the Eastern States, more sedulously than anywhere else 

 in the world, and there is, probably, nowhere, more earthly felicity 



