204 MY FARM. 



farm. If otherwise, and the overlook be rated as 

 Government or corporate officials rate such service, 

 the credit balance becomes ignominiously small. 



It is to be considered, however, that the growing 

 productive capacity of the soil, under generous man- 

 agement, may be estimated at no small percentage ; 

 and the inevitable increase in value of all lands in 

 the close neighborhood of growing towns, may be 

 counted in the light of another percentage. 



All this is not certainly very Ophir-like, nor yet 

 very dreary. 



Again, it is to be remarked that the entries for 

 labor, and incidental expenses in the accounts given, 

 are for those expenses only, which contributed directly 

 either to the farm culture, or conditions of culture 

 not all essential, perhaps, but all contributory. If, 

 however, the Bucolic citizen have a- taste to gratify 

 in architectural dovecots, in hewn walls, in removal 

 of ledges, in graperies, in the planting of long 

 ranges of Osage-Orange (which the winter mice 

 consume), the poor little credit balance of the farm 

 account, is quite lost in the blaze of agricultural 

 splendor. 



I do not at all deny the charm of such luxuries. 

 I only say that they are luxuries ; and in the 

 present state of the butter and egg markets, must 

 be paid for as such. And the life that is lived amid 



