270 MY FARM. 



We live in days when a calling whatever it may be 

 cannot find establishment of its value or worth, in 

 the echoes however resonant and grateful of what 

 has once belonged to it, or of the dead voices that 

 honored it. The charms of Virgil and the shrewd 

 observations of Cato will go but a little way to re- 

 commend a country life in our time, except that life 

 have charms in itself to pique a man's poetic sensibil- 

 ities and lessons in every field and season, to tempt 

 and reward his closest observation. 



Yet it is very remarkable how nearly these old 

 authorities have approached the best points of mod- 

 ern practice ; and again and again we are startled out 

 of our vanities by the soundness of their suggestions, 

 Rotation of crops, surface drainage, ridging of lands, 

 composting of manures, irrigation, and the paring 

 and burning of stubble-lands are all hinted, if not 

 absolutely advised, in treatises written ten centuries 

 ago. !N"or have I a doubt but that a shrewd man 

 acting upon the best advices which are to be found 

 in the various books of the Geoponica (the latest 

 not later than the sixth century), and with no other 

 instructions whatever save what regards the dex- 

 terous use of implements would manage a grain 

 field, a meadow, or an orchard, better than the half 

 of New England fanners. 



At first blush, it seems very discouraging to think 



