ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 31 



withdraws attention from assiduous cultivation, or plants 

 the hope of gain in other sources than in the herds, the 

 dairy, the grain and the grass field, will, eventually, insure 

 disappointment and even poverty, as many of our fanners 

 can testify. It would be difficult for those who had not 

 seen it, to imagine the fervent, sanguine, exulting, state of 

 mind with which the whole community, at the time we 

 speak of, looked for the wealth. Farms were to quadruple 

 in value ; pork was to be cashed at enormous prices ; grain 

 and grass, stock and fruit, were to swell the golden tide ; 

 and, for once, the world was to see great riches from little 

 labor. Carelessness, waste, rashness, and incredible pre- 

 sumption were the result. Societies for the promotion of a 

 careful and patient cultivation of the soil could not long be 

 thought worthy of attention in a community which ex- 

 pected to be rich by a dexterous bargain, by one lucky spec- 

 ulation, by town lots, and shares, and that mysterious hum- 

 bug the rise of property. 



2. Succeeding such days came the opposite extreme. 

 Everybody was poor and expected to be poorer. There 

 was no money and no market. Hogs were hardly salable, 

 grain a drug, and all produce unavailable. Nothing was 

 brisk but debt and debt collecting. Men were discouraged. 

 Said they, " if one can sell nothing, there is no use in rais- 

 ing anything ; twenty bushels an acre is as good as forty, 

 when one can't sell or use it." Schools languished, public 

 spirit died, business was totally deranged, and agricultural 

 societies became extinct with the downfall of other useful 

 institutions. 



3. There were some things in the management of the 

 societies which embarrassed them independently of these 

 other causes. There was too much talk and pretension 

 wind work; the offices were taken for the honor patient 

 endurance of drudgery, which somebody must bear, was 

 shirked oft*. Men took little pains between the meetings; 

 everything was to be done at the time of meeting ; and, of 



