ESSAY. ^ X 



educating boys away from the plough. The farmer 

 stamps his character upon his fields and home, in unmis- 

 takable hand-writing. By the arrangement of his 

 hedges, orchards, shrubbery and shade trees, he makes 

 landscape. He is a painter in living colors. He has a 

 pleasant or an unpleasant home, almost as he pleases. 

 Taste is consistent generally with good judgment; and 

 the practice of it does not require wealth, or a high edu- 

 cation. Smooth fields are more productive than rough 

 ones, and a tastefully arranged farm will sell for much 

 more, than one upon which less taste has been shown* 

 There has been very little expense incurred in making 

 this difference ; a little thought has been expended ; a 

 plan worked out, formed perhaps, while others were 

 idle. We are idle for an hour ; we might have planted 

 a tree which would have made us happier for a life-time. 

 Not every tree is useless which does not bear tangible 

 fruit. We admire the taste of our ancestors, who planted 

 the elms before our doors. They have been bearing 

 the fruit of joy and beauty a hundred years. The 

 cherries and apples please our coarser tastes; these our 

 more refined sensibilities. The Washington Elm has 

 borne as much fruit as the Stuyvesant Pear tree. Let 

 the farm be a place to live upon and not a machine to 

 run for a limited period, out of which to wring a living. 

 Let it be such a place, with such attractions that its sons 

 when called off to other pursuits, may^look back upon 

 the time spent in the old homestead as the happiest 

 part of their lives ; that the ship-wrecked" sailor may 

 cling more hopefully to his plank remembering it ; that 

 the merchant may keep a vision of it before his mind, 

 unobscured by those of wealth and gain, and in the 

 evening of his life may wander back to beautify with 

 his fortune his early home. 



