AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



43 



t im'linre) for from being disdnincd, bnvc been 

 Idirra, ihe chosen pursuiia, ibe purest dcligbte 

 ' 01 ihe most gifted intellects; and their en- 

 n in these pursuits burnt with incrcnsing in- 

 to the close of life. From the turmoils of war, 

 ggles of political ambition, the harrnssing pur- 

 successful trade, the busiest scenes ot life, 

 e forum, the senate, and the throne, they have 

 gladly to the humble occupation and pleasures 

 life and labor, and have found the precious 

 hicb they had so long sought, only in this 

 ilosophy of nature. 



ountry is the land of poetry, and the home of 

 ged imagination, as much as it is the home of 

 Is. The charms of the country are uncon- 

 ncknowledged even in cities, when you see 

 y, who live in cities, love to get a grass plat, 

 not larger than a handkerchief, before their 

 r train « woodbine or a honeysuckle to their 

 or crowd tiieir windows with flowers, or a- 

 ir persons with a floral wreath. The first o[- 

 •{ the muses were dedicated to rural life. In 

 ifing of the golden harvest, in the verdant 

 ■eading its smooth carpet beneath your feet, in 

 ■io ocean of verdure radiant with the richest 

 floral beauty, in the deep and solemn forest, 

 irrored lake reflecting in perfect distinctness 

 ;led beauties of forests and skies, in the flow- 

 ■ an image of eternity, in the mountain lift- 

 reeted top above the clouds, in the boundless 

 in the reddening dawn, in the gorgeousnees 

 imer's sunset, in the mingled splendors of the 

 I forest, there is every thing to kindle the im- 

 i and dilate the heart. When in the adven- 

 ing the man of reflecting mind and cultivated 

 break of day, witnesses the waking up of 

 ^ beholds the desolation of winter rapidly reti- 

 ore the empire of spring, and sees day alter 

 lost hour after hour, new forms of vegetable 

 nal life starting into e.\istcnce, it requires no 

 (Tort of the imagination to behold a new Eden 

 fore him, and to hear the chorus of the morn- 

 :, and " the sons of God shouiing for joy." 



MPATHY, MORE CHARITY, A HIGHER VALUE SET 

 HiniAN LIFE IN THE COUNTRY THAN IN THE 



»king of the moral aspects of agriculture, I 

 ke no invidious comparisons. The country 

 as few temptations to vicious indulgence as 

 lition in life: perhaps it may be said fewer 

 lis. Agricultural labor, unless pursued to 

 9, 80 far from being exhaustive and destruc- 

 much other labor, is Iriendly to health, and 



to intellectual vigor and length of life. The 



ties seem stronger in the country than 

 :ity, because we are more dependent on 

 ler, and have fewer objects to engross our 

 Human life seems more valued in the 

 than in the city. In the crowded city men 

 of the stream, and the vacancy is instantly 

 by the rushing torrent, and scarcely produces 

 ectators a conscious emotion. When a valu- 

 1 dies in the country, the whole village mourns 

 Theie is more of real kindness and benev 

 .ipalhy in the country than in cities. The ci- 

 full of mugnificent charities, the country is 

 e charity of kind offices. In the country, is 

 sr sick or afHicted, the whole neighborhood 

 pt to visit him, to aid him by personal ser- 

 l to watch night after night at his sick bed. — 

 it cannot be so. Cities present some of the 

 er cases of friendlessness to be found in hu 

 tory. Persons suffer, and sicken, and die, 

 perhaps the cognizance of those living under 

 roof and on the same floor. In the country 

 character has a higher value than in cities. — 

 P every thing is absorbed in the great whirl 

 S3 or pleasure; and in crowds, presenting 

 riety of character as of costume, men pass 

 ithout observation. In the country every 

 nown, observed, and watched. His charac- 



the common property of the village. This 

 mes complained of in the country as imperli- 

 id intrusiveness. This may sometimes be 



and it may become annoying; but it is not 

 nt as the complaint of it. That it has a fa- 

 nfluence upjn good morals which, under the 



of human nature, need every security, there 

 « ) doubt. 



healthful labors of the country, the early 

 e simple diet, in the open air, in the virtuous 

 I, in the general good morals which prevail, 

 ong sympathy and mutual interest in each 

 laracter and welfare, which bind such com- 

 iogeth«r, in the nbeence of multiplied temp- 



tations and facilities of vice, whir'h prevail in more 

 populous communities, an agricultural lile is highly 

 favorable to virtue. 



PHILOSOPHY, RKFINEMENT, MORALS, THE CONCOMIT- 

 ANTS OF AGRICULTURE. 



I hope I shall be excused for dwelling so long upon 

 the advantages of agricultural and rural life. Agri- 

 culture has been too long denied the rank which be- 

 longs to it among the inirsuits of mankind. I would 

 speak of it as one of the highest pursuits of philoso- 

 phy. I would gladly conuiicnd it to persona of reli- 

 ncd sentiment, as abounding in scenes, objects and as- 

 sociations, full of gratification to the most cultivated 

 mind; and for its moral securities and moral influen- 

 ces; it needs no recommendation in a community like 

 yours, presenting in its beautiful villages, among its 

 swelling hills, and its richly cultivated vales, in the 

 character of its rural population, such emphatical de- 

 monstrations of improved education, of correct mor- 

 als, and of the best influences of religion. 



1 have bare glanced at these topics, because I would 

 not encroach upon your indulgence. I have done this 

 with the more earnestness, because the tendency of 

 our young people, impelled by avarice or by false 

 views of happiness, has been to forsake the whole- 

 some pursuits of agriculture, where they found health, 

 competence, and a manly independence, for occupa- 

 tions in the cities, ol'tentinies of the most servile char- 

 acter; degrading to their self-respect, corrupting to 

 their passions, and proving often the grave of their 

 virtue. Our cities likewise are crowded with young 

 men of professional education, who, with hearts 

 aching from hopes deferred, linger along from year to 

 year until the health is exhausted, habits of indo- 

 lence are induced and confirmed, and the best por- 

 tion of life is wasted away without the accomplish- 

 ment of any valuable object; or the enjoyment of 

 those domestic ties, in which Heaven designed that 

 man should find the strongest security of virtue and 

 the purest fountains of happiness. 



AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS BETTER THAN SPLENDID 



HOUSES. 



I would likewise gladly commend this subject to 

 another class of individuals, whose attention I fear, 

 however, I shall bespeak in vain. Whoever visits our 

 great cities is constantly struck with amazement at the 

 enormous expense and splendor of many of the pri- 

 vate residences; at the extravagant piles of brick and 

 stone, seldom half tenanted, and adapted to real com- 

 fort and convenience in an inverse ratio to their inor- 

 dinate size and their wasteful magnificence. I would 

 seldom, indeed, advise a person, accustomed through 

 the prime and middle of life to the excitements of bu- 

 siness, politics, amusements, and general society in 

 the cities, to go at once into the seclusion of the coun- 

 try, especially at that period of life when the vital cur- 

 rent becomes sluggish and the physical powers lose 

 their wonted energies ; but is it not difficult for such 

 men when their fortunes are made, to enjoy the ad- 

 vantages of the city and the country together. Let 

 them pass, if they please, their winters in the city; 

 but what immense benefactions might they confer 

 upon society, and what sources of agreeable and use- 

 ful occupation might they find for themselves, if, in- 

 stead of spending their fifties or their hundreds of 

 thousands on a brick or stone castle in the city, which 

 they have seldom the means of enabling their chil- 

 dren to occupy, and which must therefore, in the 

 course of nature, soon change hands, they would ex- 

 pend some three-fourths of that sum in subduing, cul- 

 tivating and improving some hundreds of acres in the 

 country, rendering them productive, and planting up- 

 on them industrious families. They would breathe 

 into the hearts of their benefactors, the purest of plea- 

 sures in welcoming them, whenever they came a- 

 mong them, as their best friends. This seems one 

 of the most useful, as it is certainly one of the most 

 innocent purposes to which wealth can be applied. 



CAN AGRICULTURE BE MADE PROFITABLE t 



But I must pass on to other topics. The next ques- 

 tion then which arises in this case, is whether agricul- 

 ture can be made profitable; and especially whether it 

 can be made profitable in New England 1 This is a 

 great question. I can only reply briefly, without go- 

 ing into the various illustrations which might be pre- 

 sented. I will here express my thorough disgust for 

 that inordinate and grovelling avarice, which can find 

 no good but in the accumulation of dollars and cents. 

 Wealth is to be valued for its uses, not for its amount; 

 and a philanthropist can look with sorrow and alarm 

 upon that heartless and frenzied spirit of accumula- 

 tion, which at one time, like a terrible epidemic, 

 threatened to lay waste all principle and honor, and to 

 render contentment, competence, and reasunnble and 



moderate desires, matters of pure romance, whith wo 

 had somewhere read of in our childhood. liy the 

 righteous laws of Divine Providence, that inordinate 

 thiiet for gain without industry, temperance, or i'rii- 

 gality, has been so signally rebuked that it will not a- 

 gain immediately show itself. There may still be the 

 appearance of life in its quivering limbs, but few will 

 have courage or power to attempt its resuscitation. 



In the southern portions of our country, favored for 

 the purpose by its peculiar climate and soil, wc hear 

 of agricultural returns in their great staples, which 

 confounded the humble calculations to which we in 

 New England arc accustomed. Yet there are abate- 

 ments in the case, in the perils to hcnlih, and in tbe 

 nature of the labor by which these products are pro- 

 cured, which, save where the heart is cankered with 

 avarice and inhumanity, at once relieve a New Eng- 

 land man of all envy of such shccces. The fact 

 likewise presents itself in the case, strange as the a- 

 nomaly may seem, that the southern planters are not 

 richer than the northern farmers; they have not so ma- 

 ny of the real comforts of life. Many a New Eng. 

 land farmer is more independent with his income of a 

 few hundreds, than a southern master of his uncount- 

 ed acres and his hundreds of slaves, with his income 

 of many thousands. I do not say these things in the 

 spirit of invidious comparisons; 1 would not mar the 

 pleasures of the orcasion by awakening a single un- 

 kind feeling. But we may learn, from the Ibets in 

 the case, a lesson of gratitude, that we are permitted 

 to breathe the bracing air of northern mountains and 

 seas, and the still more invigorating atmosphere of 

 equality of condition aud universal freedom. 



Agriculture in New England presents no brilliant 

 prizes to the mind bent solely on the accumulation of 

 wealth. Yet rough, barren, and inhospitable as New 

 England seems to many persons, yet I can show you, 

 in every town from Lake Champlain to the Aroostook, 

 and from Saybrook to the Canada line, not a few ex- 

 amples of men, who by farming have maintained their 

 families in health and comfort, educated their children 

 well, and if so they pleased, found the means of send- 

 ing one or more sons to college; exercised, as far as 

 they had occasion, an unstinted hospitality; contribu- 

 ted their full share of the public dues, and are now en- 

 joying the evening of life with an honest conscience 

 and a competence for every reasonable want. The 

 house, in such case, may appear moss-covered and 

 brown with age. No burnished lamps light up its 

 halls, and no carpel soft as down cover its floors; but 

 infinitely preferable is such a dwelling to palaces, 

 where once wealth, the product of defrauded labor, il- 

 luminated every room, and revelry and luxury held 

 their frequent courts; and where now, though bank- 

 ruptcy has long since entered, men are still living up. 

 on the fragments of former luxury or upon hoarded 

 gains, in defiance of justice and honor. 



ADVANTAGES OF HIGH CULTIVATION, 



, Further, my inquiries have satisfied me, that there 

 is not a single crop well cultivated in New England, 

 which in ordinary seasons will not pay a fair rent of 

 the land at current prices, and liberally compensate the 

 labor and cultivation. Our proximity to quick mar- 

 kets gives us grent advcntagcs over many parts of the 

 country. In one of my visits to a town on the sea- 

 shore of Massachusetts, in a region whose rock- 

 bound surface seemed to have set cultivation at defi- 

 ance, I found several acres of land subdued and im- 

 proved at the rate of three hundred dollars per aeie. 

 Could this be afforded ? Look at the case. The 

 land was made to produce three tons of hay to the 

 acre. The price of hay in the vicinity has averaged 

 for years, at least fifteen dollars. The value of one 

 ton of hay per year, is sufficient to gather the crop 

 and keep the land in condition. Thirty dollars then 

 are the net return for the investment. These are ex- 

 amples of extraordinary expenditure and ample pro- 

 fits. The crop of Indian corn is the greatest blessing 

 of our country. The average crop in New England 

 is thirty bushels. It is not difficult to produce fifty to 

 an acre. I have known one hundred and eleven pro- 

 duced on an acre in Massachusetts, as measured after 

 being shelled and dried. At fifty bushels per acre, 

 rating the rough fodder as equal to a ton of English 

 hay, and the grain at seventy cents per bushel, the re- 

 turn may be considered as equal to fifty dollars. Thir- 

 ty dollars may be considered a high average price for 

 cultivation, and this including the interest upon the 

 value of the land at fifty dollars per acre. 



# » * » « 



(We here omit the sections entitled "Comparative 

 Products, and Income of the East and West, "Great 

 Improvements in Stock Mid Agricultural Iixtpl^- 



