^k^lMP 



PlgPlJll 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. XVI. 



BOSTON, AUGUST, 1864. 



NO. 8 



NOURSE, EATON & TOLMAN, Proprietors.' 

 Office.... 102 Washington Street. 



SIMON BROWN, Editor. 



AUGUST. 



O, 'tis a sight the soul to cheer, 

 The promise of the fruitful year, 

 When God abroad his bounty flings, 

 And answering nature laughs and sings ! 

 He, "for the evil and the good," 

 For them with hearts of gratitude, 

 For them who thanklessly receive, 

 The blessings he vouchsafed to give, 

 Bids from liis storehouse in the skies, 

 ""His rain descend, His sun to rise." 



Bishop Mant. 



v G u s T , like 

 July, is a month 

 of many duties. 

 The farmer will 

 find but little 

 respite from his 

 labors, for no 

 sooner is the 

 hay harvest se- 

 cured than the 

 grain crops — 

 wheat, rye, bar- 

 ley, oats and 

 other grains, are 

 to be attended 

 to. Yet no sea- 

 son, perhaps, is 

 ace o m p a n i e d 

 with sweeter 

 pleasures or more solid enjoyments. Toil is 

 sweetened by the reflection that it is amply re- 

 wafded by its results, and a zest communicated to 

 every employment by the prospect of succeeding 

 rest. Who is happier, indeed, than the success- 

 ful farmer ? With wants moderated within the 

 limits of easy indulgence, and with tastes as sim- 

 ple as the beauties by which he 'is surrounded, 

 there *is little to annoy or perplex, or to excite to 

 those painful and ruinous efforts in pursuit of 

 pleasure, which are so eminently destructive of 

 .genuine happiness, and attended so often by dis- 

 astrous and fatal results. He knows the Omni- 

 potent has designed that in the "sweat of his face 



he shall eat bread," and that he can in no way be 

 so happy as in the performance of those duties 

 which "devolve upon him in his character of citi- 

 zen and man." Surrounded by the blessings and 

 enjoyments of a peaceful home, he can smile at 

 the allurements the world holds out to excite the 

 ambitious, and stir up the unholy passions of riv- 

 alry and envy in the worldly mind. Conscious 

 that he is, to the best of his ability, filling the 

 sphere which God has assigned as his special prov- 

 ince of thought and action, without wishing to 

 transgress its established*' limits, he does not ad- 

 mit to his heart a single feeling antagonist to the 

 emotions of quiet and pious joy which it so nat- 

 urally begets. Well may he exclaim with the 



poet : 



I but ask 



Of Nature that with which she will comply — 

 It is but in her summer sun to bask, 



To mingle with the quiet of her sky, 

 To see her gentle face without a mask 



And never gaze on it with apathy. 

 She was my early friend, and now shall be 



My sister." 

 There is one thing which strikes us most favor- 

 ably when contemplating the condition of the farm- 

 ers of the present day, and that is the obvious im- 

 provement manifested in their mode of living, and 

 the regard to neatness which their farms and 

 homes exhibit. In many details, farming, as a 

 business, has considerably advanced during the 

 last ten years. The New England husbandman, 

 who owns his lands, is now a gentleman — not one 

 of the gilded butterflies of society, who call them- 

 selves such, but a gentleman in fact. By patient 

 industry in an honorable pursuit, he has acquired 

 the means of happiness and comfort, and enjoys 

 an independence, a freedom from care, which even 

 a monarch might envy, and of which no revolu- 

 tion of society can lawfully deprive him. In this 

 sentiment of natural independence reposes a pow- 

 er more to be valued than gold or jewels, — amor- 

 al force which imparts energy to every faculty, 

 and by elevating the intellect and the affections, 



