256 MY FARM. 



shot, but never make a concerted urgent protest ; 01 

 if they rally so far as to send one of their own people 

 to the Legislature, he, poor fellow, does not pass ten 

 days under the fingers of the lobbyists, but he sinks 

 into the veriest dribblet of a politician ; and gives 

 the last proof of it, by making a pompous speech 

 on ' Federal Relations,' not worth the carcass of a 

 ewe lamb. 



Under these conditions, any new and valuable 

 methods of farm-practice do not spread with any 

 rapidity ; they hobble lamely over innumerable flank- 

 ing walls. It is possible they may get an airing in 

 the Agricultural journals ; but good and serviceable 

 as these journals are, their statements do not influ- 

 ence, like personal communications. Reforms want 

 the ring of spoken words, and some electric social 

 chain traversing a whole district, and flashing with 

 neighborly talk. 



The man of education, giving himself over to the 

 retirement of a farm-life, will find this isolation, soon- 

 er or later, grating sorely. Whatever love of the pur- 

 suit its cares, indulgences, attractions, successes 

 may engross him, a certain attrition with the world is 

 as necessary to his mental health, and briskness of 

 thought as a rubbing-post for his pigs. He may let 

 himself off in newspapers, or he may thumb his library 

 and the journals, but these ofter but dead contact, and 



