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Show FARM LIFE. Agriculture is the greatest among the arts, for It Is first In supplying our necessities. It Is the nurse and mother of all other arts. It favors and strengthens population; itcreates and maintains manufactures, gives employment to navigation and materials ma-terials to commerce. It animates every species of Industry and opens to nations the Surest channels of opulence. opu-lence. It Is also the strongest bond of well-regulated society, the surest basis of internal peace, the natural associate of good morals. Health, the first and best of all the blessings of life, is preserved and fortified by the practice of agriculture. That state of well-being which we feel and cannot define; that self-satisfied disposition which depends, perhaps, on the perfect per-fect equilibrium and easy play of vital forces, turns the slightest acts to pleasure and makes every exertion ot our faculties a source of enjoyment. This Inestimable state of our bodily functions is most vigorous In the country, and If lost elsewhere it is In the country we expect to recover It. It has been long observed, and with unfeigned regret,thatthegrowlngtend-ency regret,thatthegrowlngtend-ency of young men and lads, yet early In their teens.ls to abandon the healthful health-ful and enobllng cares of the farm for the dangerous excitements and vicissitudes vicissi-tudes of city life and trade. Delightful Delight-ful firesides and friendly circles In the quiet rural districts are every day sacrificed to this lamentable mania of the times. Young men, favored w Ith every comfort com-fort ot life and not overworked, fancy that they can do far better than to guide the team at the plow and are withdrawn from the Implements of agriculture and given to the otllce or shopwork of the city, which generally proves vastly less agreeable or profitable profit-able than they had anticipated. Parents Pa-rents throughout the country have not failed to realize this startling truth, and to sorely mouru the strange inclination of their sons to encounter the fascinating snares and pitfalls of city residence and fashion. In brief, let the country lad be as well educated for the farm as his city cousin is for the bar or the counting room, and by all means let the farmer be led to properly prop-erly estimate his high and honorable position in the community. It would require volumes to enumerate the noble men who have imperlshably recorded re-corded their exalted appreciation ot rural life and enterprise. Every age has augmented the illustrlousuumbcr. Our own immortal Washington was ever more enamored of the slckel than the sword, and unhesitatingly pronounced pro-nounced agriculture "the most healthy, the most useful, and the most noble employment of man," Ot all occupations that ot agriculture agricult-ure Is best calculated to Induce love of country and rivet it firmly on the heart. No profession is more honorable, hon-orable, nono as conducive to health, peace.tranqulllty and happiness. More Independent than any other calling it is calculated to produce an Innate love of liberty. The farmer stands upon a lofty eminence and looks upon the bustle ot cities, the Intricacies of mechanism, the din of commerce, and brain-confusing, body-killing literature, litera-ture, with feelings of personal freedom, free-dom, peculiarly his own. lie delights in the city as his market place, acknowledges ac-knowledges tho usefulness of the mechanic, me-chanic, admires the enterprise of the commercial man, and rejoices In tho benefits that flow from the untiring ' Investigations and developments of science, then turns his thoughts to the pristine quiet of his agrarian domain do-main and covets nit the harm that accumulates around the' other professions pro-fessions J1- Ex. |
