THE FARMER AND HIS HOME. 
125 
worry yourselves into a fever, oh you good housewives, that your 
guest may be stuffed to repletion with the products of your 
cookery, but get together to exchange kindly greetings, to talk 
over the news, and if you like, to discuss the latest fashions; 
let your good men talk of their crops, or their stock, or their 
politics, if they will. Let the young folks visit; encourage 
them to visit and enjoy themselves, but do not give up the vis¬ 
iting to them, that is a great mistake. They need your com¬ 
pany, and you need theirs. ****** 
I have said little about schools or religion, in the training of 
your-children and yourselves. Hut schools are a well under¬ 
stood part of our system, compared with the matters I have 
been speaking of, and religion is now universally admitted to 
be the only sure foundation on which to build up any true 
refinement and civilization. 
Train up your children in the ways I have spoken of, and they 
will be good society; they will soon find that they have no occa¬ 
sion to feel awkward or ashamed in any society in the country. 
Do you say that the matters I have spoken of are small and 
trifling ? You must remember that life is made up of small 
things ; the sparkling diamond receives its polish from parti¬ 
cles of dust. You must remember that it is the neglect of such 
trifles that drives away from the farmer’s home and the farm¬ 
er’s life, generation after generation of the farmer’s children, 
and that makes many farmers condemn their life as bare and 
cold, and without enjoyment. These trifles are worth attend¬ 
ing to. 
Let us now try to picture the farmer’s home as I have hinted 
at it. As for the house, let it be of two stories, or one story, 
let it even be a log house, but let it not be bare—desolate and 
staring ; let it stand on a gentle knoll; let there be on this side 
fertile, and well cultivated fields; here the orchards; here the 
garden, well filled with fruits and vegetables; here the barn 
and yard, where the fat and sleek cattle come and go, or stand 
lazily chewing the cud. Let us enter the front door-yard, 
.abundant in grass, and in fragrant and flowering shrubs, and 
