HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 277 



From beginning to end there has been no business 

 forecast of the requisite labor involved, no method in 

 its prosecution no estimate of the scheme as a busi- 

 ness operation. 



It is certain that by a special dispensation of 

 Providence in favor of those who make up the bulk 

 of the human family, a man may secure a simple live- 

 lihood in agricultural pursuits, with less of energy, 

 less of promptitude, less of calculation, and greater 

 unthrift generally, than would be compatible with 

 even this scanty aim, in any other calling of life. 

 With a respectable crop insured by only a moderate 

 amount of attention and activity, the temptation to a 

 lazy indifierence, and a sleepy passivity, is immense. 

 There are farmers who yield to the temptation grace- 

 fully and completely. The stir, the wakefulness, the 

 promptitude that seize upon new issues, develop new 

 enterprises, create new demands, are as foreign to the 

 majority of landholders, as a ringing discussion of 

 new topics, or a juicy haunch of Southdown, to their 

 tables. 



But whatever may be the triumphs of business 

 tact and of a just apportionment of capital, between 

 land and implements, or fertilizers, the real question 

 with a man of any considerable degree of cultivation 

 who meditates country life, is not whether legitimate 

 attention will secure a tolerable balance sheet, and 



