11 



wealth, who, on being confined to the conch of pain and 

 sickness, that proved his death bed, begged those around 

 him to gather from the garden handfuls of sweet spring 

 violets, that, way back in the simple days of his tender, 

 innocent childhood, he had so loved, and scatter them on 

 his pillow, that he might lay his worn and faded cheek 

 against them, and so — he died. 



It is upon these pleasures of field and country, my 

 friends, that I shall speak to you now. Addressing- you 

 as a plain, practical farmer, with none of the flowers of 

 oratory, but bringing forward only some of the humble 

 fruits of my own observation and experience, mingled, I 

 hope, with a few grains of good, homely, common sense. 



The joys, delights and glories of a farmer's life, and 

 the means of their attainment, — this is the subject I 

 would present for your consideration ; hoping, perchance, 

 to win some one heart not yet awakened to its attractions, 

 and gain yet a new devotee at the beneficent shrine of 

 Agriculture, — at least, to arouse a new consciousness of 

 the farmer's noble calling in those " to the manor born," 

 who enjoy the unprized privilege of inheriting paternal 

 acres and of holding unimproved from their fathers the 

 broad, productive fields of a New England farm. For, 

 on the farm, the farm of the North or the South, of the 

 East or the West, are all things based ; the great ware- 

 houses of the merchant, the shops of the trader, the 

 mighty manufactory with its whirling spindles, and the 

 work-bench of the busy mechanic. It loads with its 

 various productions the big ships on the sea, it freights 

 the well filled canal-boat, and the floating palaces of 

 steam that swim the giant rivers ; the farm, the great 

 producer, fills them all and feeds them all ! And the 

 farmer, that owns the world, and from whom its wealth, 

 its comforts and luxuries come, is its unconscious king ; 

 scarcely beginning, even in these new days of scarcity 



