THE FARMER 171 



general rule, that no man who communes much with himself 

 will ever be so. Extravagance and improvidence are en- 

 gendered by contact and crowds ; one man leads another 

 astra}', and having embarked in a thing few men like to back 

 out. But Farmers are not gregarious beings. Societ}', with 

 them is the exception, and not the general rule. The family 

 circle supplies their wants in that way, and a domestic man 

 will rarely be found doing an act prejudicial to his family. 

 When times are adverse, then Farmers do not hunt, and 

 therefore we hold that a good show of them is the most 

 satisfactory evidence of general national prosperity. 



We hope to live to see farming occupying a higher position 

 in the enterprise of our country than it at present holds. Not 

 but there are many bright ornaments among its peaceful 

 followers already, but we hope to see farming taken up more 

 as the occupation of gentlemen, who will adopt its fine, 

 healthy, interesting pursuits, instead of some of the genteel 

 starvations called " professions," that many waste the best of 

 their lives in following, to quit in disgust at the time they 

 ought to be making money. Farming is not a mone3^-bag 

 loading business, like many sedentary trades and pursuits, but 

 then it is a certain means of good and comfortable living, and 

 requires no long slavish apprenticeship, or extraordinary 

 power of intellect to learn, and no great capital to set up with. 

 Suppose a parent can give his son two or three thousand 

 pounds, to set him up in a farm of from eight hundred to a 

 thousand a-year rent. For that he gets a good house and 

 garden, and his farm will furnish him with every real require- 

 ment — not to say luxury of life, and instead of imbibing the 

 foul, noisome air of the town, in some confined chamber or 

 manufacturing office, and getting snatches of life by occasional 

 dives into the country, his whole year is one of wholesome, 

 pleasurable excitement and enjoyment. To a lover of the 

 country no life can compare with that of a Farmer. He 



