400 AGRICULTURE. 



white house, two stories, and a wing with kitchen in the rear, flanked by 

 barns, and cribs, and granaries, and dairy houses. 



" But take a nearer view. Ha ! what means this mighty crop of 

 unmown thistles bordering the road ? For what market is that still 

 mightier crop of pigweed, dock and nettles destined, that fills up the 

 space they call the 'garden?' And look at those wide, unsightly 

 thickets of elm, and sumac, and briers, and choke-cherry, that mark the 

 lines of every fence ! 



" Approach the house, built in the road to be convenient, and save 

 land ! Two stories and a wing, and every blind shut close as a miser's 

 fist, without a tree, or shrub, or flower to break the air of barrenness 

 and desolation around it. There it stands, white, glaring and ghastly 

 as a pyramid of bones in the desert. Mount the unfrequented door stone, 

 grown over with vile weeds, and knock till your knuckles are sore. It 

 is a beautiful moonlight October evening ; and as you stand upon that 

 stone, a ringing laugh comes from the rear, and satisfies you that some- 

 body lives there. Pass now around to the rear : but hold your nose 

 when you come within range of the piggery, and have a care that you 

 don't get swamped in the neighborhood of the sink-spout. Enter the 

 kitchen. Ha ! here they are all alive, and here they live all together. 

 The kitchen is the kitchen, the dining-room, the sitting-room, the room 

 of all work. Here father sits with his hat on and in his shirt-sleeves. 

 Around him are his boys and his hired men, some with hats and some 

 with coats, and some with neither. The boys are busy shelling corn for 

 samp ; the hired men are scraping whip-stocks and whittling bow-pins, 

 throwing every now and then a sheep's eye and a jest at the girls, who, 

 with their mother, are doing-up the house-work. The younger fry are 

 building cob-houses, parching corn, and burning their fingers. Not a 

 book is to be seen, though the winter school has commenced, and the 

 master is going to board there. Privacy is a word of unknown meaning 

 in that family ; and if a son or daughter should borrow a book, it 

 would be almost impossible to read it in that room , and on no occasion 

 is the front house opened, except when ' company come to spend the 

 afternoon,' or when things are brushed and dusted, and ' set to rights.' 



" Yet these are as honest, as worthy, and kind-hearted people as you 

 will find anywhere, and are studying out some way of getting theii 

 younger children into a better position than they themselves occupy. 

 They are in easy circumstances, owe nothing, and have money loaned 

 on bond and mortgage. After much consultation, a son is placed at 

 school that he may be fitted to go into a store, or possibly an office, to 

 study a profession ; and a daughter is sent away to learn books, and 



