35 



sagacious frientl, Hon. Thomas Motley, late last fall. By 

 and by, doubtless, we shall plant our potatoes mostly in 

 November. 



And here, as we come to an end, we can only has- 

 tily catalogue a few of the other noble delights and 

 glories of the farmer's life. Among these, most of us 

 farmers, doubtless, enumerate a good natural soil as an 

 essential to great crops, the rich alluvial interval, or 

 the fruitful mineral debris of the green and springy 

 mountains. But any soil, however fertile, without pro- 

 per culture, is soon exhausted, as the once famous lands 

 of Western New York and Ohio give proof. Remember 

 that the true farmer makes a good soil ivherever he is^ and 

 the poor farmer ought never to have anything but poor 

 soil, for his wretched tillage would soon exhaust the best 

 soil in the world ! I sometimes fear that rich, strong soil 

 is a premium to laziness, encourages a lack of enterprise 

 and energy, and makes a great deal of poor farming 

 among us. 



And I must pass by here the splendor of fine horses, 

 and the glories of good stock of various kind ; the im- 

 portance of selecting and breeding cattle, not from the 

 fame of their name, but the excellency of their nature ; 

 and thus originating prime American or Massachusetts 

 breeds. And I must leave, too, to the Committees, the 

 enchantments of the poultry-yard, lest cattle detain us 

 till the cows come home, and poultry keep us till cock- 

 crow. A bountiful supply of good fresh vegetables of 

 all kinds, and at all seasons, is one of the most obvious 

 elements in the enjoyment of life on the farm. What so 

 nourishing 1 what has a greater air of luxurious comfort 

 and plenty than the dinner table, loaded with these and 

 set off by fruits ? Who misses then, the questionable 

 stimulus of the meat cart 1 A fanner that doesn't culti- 

 vate a garden, has no right to complain of butcher's bills 



