'which they are prompted to try a great many other ways to make a liv¬ 
ing, except by hard work. Perhaps they have turned politicians, and 
hope to gain wealth and honor at the same time by fishing for paltry 
offices, amid the turbid waters, or rather whiskey of the grog shops and 
flunkey cross-road taverns ; idling away the long yellow days of harvest, 
amid the fumes of stale tobacco smoke, and spirited loafers, attending 
•caucuses, and afterwards digging their potatoes with a crow bar, and 
husking their corn in the snow to pay for it. 
Or, if not quite so aspiring, perhaps they have fixed up a horse team, 
or perchance a threshing machine, and are doing their neighbors’ work 
instead of their own. Their own farm being of course neglected, and 
probably under a mortgage, at an exorbitant rate of interest for the horse 
team and the thresher, begins at once to assume all the signs and symp¬ 
toms of premature old age—the work that is done on it being so poorly 
done, and done out of season, does not pay its cost; and the improve¬ 
ments made are of such a shabby character, and so rapidly going to 
decay at that, as to cause the farm to decrease, rather than increase in 
value. Thus the mistaken man, though ranging over the country suffer¬ 
ing hardship and exposure, under the impression that he is doing better 
than he could by attending to his own business, is actually, in nine cases 
out of ten, doing a great deal worse, and more likely than not, is paving 
the way to ruin, and a trip to California, which will be likely enough to 
prove a second death. 
The time has already arrived, when every able-bodied man who has a 
taste and disposition to embark in that best of all business, farming, 
should, if he has not already done it, secure to himself a tract of land 
commensurate with his means and taste, being careful not to buy too 
much, especially on credit; and when the land is secured, and the begin¬ 
ning is to be made, let him go about it with industry, and a determina¬ 
tion to do all that is done, as well as is possible under the circumstances. 
Let him see that his orchard is set early, and is composed of good trees 
if the number is not so great. Let him enclose the orchard and garden 
with a safe, if not a handsome, fence ; and let him make it holy ground 
into which no unclean beast can enter, except for plowing, and then only 
in careful hands. Let him lay off the ground, as fast as practicable, into 
proper sized fields ; and when they are sown or planted, let him be sur« 
