8 



of her gifts, demanding onlj in return vigilant care and the refuse 

 of the products he cannot use. 



But if a man has hopes and aspirations which do not cluster 

 about home, if he would move the world outside of his farm, 

 the farm, nevertheless, is a grand starting-point. 



If, for example, a man hankers for political distinction, the 

 thirst for which has been one of the greatest curses that has 

 afflicted our country, (the locusts of Egypt were mercy in the 

 comparison,) it will by no means mar his prospects to have the 

 title of farmer prefixed to his name. It throws that of esquire 

 or reverend at once into the shade. The prophet sought for the 

 king of Israel among the shepherds of Bethlehem. The Romans 

 found the Saviour of the republic at the plough. The Father 

 of his country was a Virginia planter. With the Farmer of the 

 Hermitage and the Farmer of Marshfield our dear old homestead 

 remained undivided. 



There is, doubtless, more or less pretension about the matter. 

 Every aspirant for office who ever rode within sight of a cornfield, 

 or whose grandfather ever held a plough, is, for the nonce, a 

 farmer. But there is a valuable truth underlying this pretension. 

 It is a deep and prevalent conviction that rural pursuits keep the 

 mind and heart in sound and healthy tone ; that they who till the 

 soil and moisten it with the sweat of their brows, cannot but love 

 it ; that his heart must be cold and dead, who, standing beneath 

 the tree in whose shade he sported in childhood, and looking out 

 upon the broad acres his skill and muscle have subdued and clad 

 with beauty, does not feel with singular depth and earnestness, 



" This is my own, my native land." 



If a young man has higher, nobler aims in life, the devel- 

 opment and culture of mind and heart, what better school is there 

 than the culture of the earth ? I mean, of course, the culture of 

 the earth in the light and with the eye of science. The science 

 of agriculture, beautiful as it is profound, looking into the very 

 heart of Nature's secrets and mysteries, at once the interpreter 

 and handmaid of creative Avisdom and power, will feed, refresh 

 and strengthen the mind, at the same time that it fits it for every 

 day's duties. And the close observation and study of nature, in 



