530 Winter in Prospect — December. 
Now let us examine the other side of the picture. Nature has 
been both bountiful and kind to the husbandman. His garners 
are well filled and his heart gladdened by the unfailing beneficence 
of Providence. Dwelling constantly in the presence of Nature, 
and beholding the seasons in their round, he drinks unconscious 
joy from the magnificence of earth and sky, while the continued 
abundance which loads bis board, and the happy peace of his 
home, fill his heart with a sense of satisfaction. 
In the country, the farmer with his crops all in, his cattle in 
their stalls or at the crib, calls his friends aboilt him, and whence 
such social, jolly dinners? The sound of the flail is his music, 
and the talk of markets his felicity. 
To the young and strong and healthy, how beautiful and charm- 
ing is winter. The clear, sharp, bright days, how they brace the 
nerves! How they make the blood bound! What a feeling of 
pleasure lives through the heart and the whole being! The 
splendid heavens at night, the moon, how beautiful! The snow 
in its abundance, the hoar frost in its silent magnificence, the ice- 
bound river, with its throngs of sliders and skaters ! The merry 
bells, the sleigh-ride — all, all combine to render the season plea- 
sant and deprive it of its terrors. 
And then comes Christmas — " merry Christmas" — with all its 
roast turkeys, chicken pies, krullers and dough-nuts — such feast- 
ing for those who can get them — then comes, anon, a " Happy 
New Year." Happy indeed are those who have no cause to 
regret the passing of the present year. 
Thus come we, however happy or unhappy, prosperous or un- 
prosperous, to the end of our month and the year, and hence our 
observations upon agriculture and husbandry affairs being about 
to close, since the general farming operations of the present month 
are neither of a very interesting nor marked character, we pro- 
pose to cast a retrospective eye over our past labors, for the 
sake of introducing whatever may by chance have been omitted, 
. as we have traveled over the calendar. 
It frequently happens that there is a smaller amount of labor 
