IX. 



A LOOK ABOUT US. 



April, 1850. 



j"N tne Oid-fashioned way of travelling, "up hill and down dale," 

 JL by post-coaches, it was a great gratification (altogether lost in 

 swift and smooth railroads), to stop and rest for a moment on a hill- 

 top and survey the country behind and about us. 



Something of this retrospect is as refreshing and salutary in any 

 other field of progress. Certainly, nothing will carry us on with 

 such speed as to look neither to the right or left, to concentrate all 

 our powers to this undeviating straight-forward line. But, on the 

 other hand, as he who travels in a rail-car knows little or nothing 

 of the country, except the points of departure and arrival, so, if we 

 do not occasionally take a slight glance at things about us, we shall 

 be comparatively ignorant of many interesting features, not in the 

 straight line of " onward march." 



One of the best signs of the times for country people, is the in- 

 crease of agricultural papers in number, and the still greater increase 

 of subscribers. When the Albany Cultivator stood nearly alone in 

 the field, some fifteen years ago, and boasted of twenty thousand 

 subscribers, it was thought a marvellous thing this interest in the 

 intellectual part of farming ; and there were those who thought it 

 " could not last long." Now that there are dozens of agricultural 

 journals, with hundreds of thousands of readers, the interest in 

 " book farming" is at last beginning to be looked upon as something 

 significant ; and the agricultural press begins to feel that it is of some 

 account in the commonwealth. When it does something more 



