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Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
present to the farmers’ boys of Wisconsin, a few extracts from 
Washington Irving upon the topic of Rural Life in England, to 
show to what condition, what a high position the country gentle¬ 
man attains, and what a high position he maintains in society 
where gentlemen are connected with agriculture. I have sketched 
it off and I would like the choicest sentiments printed in your vol¬ 
ume, and it seems to me they will help to tone up this feeling 
among the young people, in regard to the honorableness and res¬ 
pectability of this occupation. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMEN. 
Washington Irving has given to'the world a glowing sketch of 
“Rural Life in England.” He said: 
“The English are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They 
possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen 
relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This pas¬ 
sion seems inherent in them. It is in the country that the English¬ 
man gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly 
from the cold formalities of town, throws off his habits of shy 
reserve, and becomes joyous and free hearted. He manages to col¬ 
lect around him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, 
and to banish its restraints. His country-seat abounds with every 
requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or 
rural exercise. The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, 
and in what is called landscape-gardening, is unrivalled. They have 
studied nature intenlly, and discover an exquisite sense of her beau¬ 
tiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms, which in 
other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes, are in England as¬ 
sembled around the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have 
caught her coy and furtive glances, and spread them like witchery, 
about their rural abodes. 
“ The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty por¬ 
tion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a 
little^paradise. The residence of people of fortune and refinement 
in the country has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural 
economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with 
his thatched cottage and narrow strip of ground, attends to their 
embellishment. 
“ The fondness for rural-life among the higher classes of the 
