a 



8 



rates of taxation upon almost a city valuation of his barren 

 hill-side, compete with him whose best arable land pays a 

 tax not exceeding one dollar to the acre ? How can yon pas- 

 ture your cows upon land valued and taxed by the foot? 

 What general crop so profitable as a dwelling-house ? Indeed, 

 we may almost state it as an axiom that when land comes 

 to be sold off the principal streets of a village by the foot, 

 the day of general farming is done in that vicinity. In a 

 word, then, the land in a considerable part of Norfolk Coun- 

 ty has become so much more valuable for cutting into small 

 homesteads than for use in the broad fields and wide ran- 

 ges, required for what I call, for want of a better name, 

 the old, general, ample-skirted farming, that no one, solely 

 as matter of gain, cares to undertake it. 



The old, familiar, homely ways, familiar to our boyish rec- 

 ollections, may, to be sure, linger here and there in some se- 

 cluded or favorable nooks ; for farming is a good conservative 

 pursuit, but we of the metropolitan circle, if I may be per- 

 mitted the term, must soon go further a-field to refresh the 

 rustic reminiscences of those pleasant summers when we were 

 young. For in the old-fashioned methods there seemed, at 

 least, to dwell something of sweetness and poetry which lends 

 a certain touch of sentiment even to grave agricultural 



addresses* 



You are all familiar with the picture, — its golden lights, — 

 its cool, gray shadows, — its mellow, tender tones. You see 

 the old brown farm-house, overshadowed by the giant elms in 

 the door-yard ; you catch a delicious glimpse of the cool, shady 

 orchard behind it, — there yonder is the great barn, with its 

 red doors, its dusty, cob-webbed beams, and deep hay-mows, 

 and the swallows flittering and twittering back and forth. 

 There, too, is the rocky hill-side pasture, with its patches of 

 short velvet turf, and the calm, contented cows winking and 

 chewing lazily in the shade, or dozing peacefully as they stand 

 mid-leg deep in the brook, taking their noon-tide rest. How 

 familiar it all is to us, and how pleasant ; but it is not busi- 

 ness. The fact is that the poetry and the charms, the fascina- 



