Co/jjian's Asricullural Addresses. 105 



citizen in the cities and a farmer among the fiirmers. I hare been a 

 frequent visiter in city palaces, and many a time an ind«eller of the 

 humblest mansions in the secluded parts of the country; and I must 

 say, without derogating from the refinements of the most improved 

 society in the cities, that the comparison in respect to courtesy and 

 civility would not turn out to the disadvantage of the country. True 

 politeness is not matter of mere form or manner, but of sentiment 

 and heart. There are rude and vulgar people every where; but will 

 not a sober judgment pronounce it as great a rudeness to be sent 

 knowingly away from the door of one who calls herself a friend, by 

 a servant with a lie put in his mouth, as to be received by the kind wo- 

 man w ho welcomes us heartily at her WMsh-tub or her spinning-wheel, 

 and sweeps a place for us, without apology, to sit down at her kitch- 

 en fire? You will pardon the homeliness of my illustrations. You 

 may thread your beautiful valley from the ocean to the mountains; 

 you may, as I have done, follow the silver stream, whose honored 

 name is borne by your Commonwealth, from the place %\here it de- 

 posits its contributions in the miirhty treasury of the sea, to its gush- 

 ing sources under the snow-clad summits of the north, and traverse 

 every State whose borders are laved by its gentle waters, and good 

 manners on your part will be invariably met with a corresponding 

 civility. Excepting among the vicious and depraved, jou will find 

 no rudeness, unless you are so unfortunate as to provoke it by your 

 own arrogance. 



It is folly to carry city manners and customs into the country. 

 This destroys the simplicity which constitutes the charm of rural 

 lite. If you have no real taste for rural pleasures, uo interest in 

 rural concerns, no disposition for rural labors; if you are afraid of 

 soiling your hands or browning your cheeks; if you can make no 

 friends with the flocks that whiten the fields, nor the birds that make 

 the hills and forests vocal with melody; if you are unwilling that the 

 earliest rays of the dawn should disturb your repose, and your heart 

 kindles with no enthusiasm in the golden sunset, then flee the coun- 

 try as you would the Siberian desert. It would be to you only a land 

 of discoml'ort and solitude. 



The closing remarks, in relation to horticulture, will find a 

 response among all our readers: — 



The vast creation of God, the centre and source of good, is every 

 •where radiant with beauty. From the shell that lies buried at the 

 depths of the ocean, to the twinkling star that floats in the still more 

 profound depths of the firmament, through all the forms of material 

 and animated existence, beauty, beauty, beauty prevails. In the flo- 

 ral kingdom it appears in an infinite vai iety, in an unstinted and even 

 a richer profusion than in other departments of nature. While 

 these contributions are thrown out so lavishly at our feet, and a taste 

 for flowers seems almost an instinct of nature, and is one of the 

 most innocent and refined sentiments which we can cultivate, let us 

 indulge and gratify it to the utmost extent, wherever leisure, oppor- 

 tunity, and torrune give us the means. There is no danger of an 

 excess, under those reasonable restrictions which all our sentiments 

 demand. " But," says some cynical oitjector, " flowers are only to 

 please the eye." And why should not the eye be pleased? What 



VOL. VII. — NO. III. 14 



