in agricultural
science and decided improvements in the means and modes of farming.
The plough is perfected, and the theory of ploughing is
understood. The advantages of thorough draining are universally
recognized, and tiles are for sale everywhere. Mowing and reaping
machines have ceased to be a novelty upon our plains and meadows. The
natural fertilizers have been analyzed, and artificial nutrients of
the soil have been contrived. The pick and pride of foreign herds
have regenerated our neat stock, and the Morgan and the Black-Hawk eat
their oats in our stalls. The sheepfold and the sty abound with choice
blood. Sterling agricultural journals are on every farmer's table, and
Saxton's hand-books upon agricultural specialties are scattered
everywhere. Public shows and fairs bring on an annual exacerbation of
the agricultural fever, which is constantly breaking out in new
places, beyond the power of the daily press to chronicle. Yet it is
too evident that the results are not at all commensurate with the
means under tribute and at command. What is the reason?

In looking at the life of the New England farmer, the first fact that
strikes us is, that it is actually a very different thing from what it
might be and ought to be. There dwells in every mind, through all
callings and all professions, the idea that the farmer's life is, or
may be, is, or should be, the truest and sweetest life that man can
live. The merchant may win all the prizes of trade, the professional
man may achieve triumphs beyond his hopes, the author may find his
name upon every lip, and his works accounted among the nation's
treasures, and all may move amid the whirl and din of the most
inspiring life, yet there will come to every one, in quiet
evening-hours, the vision of the old homestead, long since forsaken;
or the imagination will weave a picture of its own,--a picture of
rural life, so homely, yet so beautiful, that the heart will breathe a
sigh upon it, the eye will drop a tear upon it, and the voice will
say, "It were better so!"

In a city like Boston there are farms enough imagined every year to
make another New England. Could the fairest fancies of that congeries
of minds be embodied and exhibited, we should see green meadows
sparkling with morning dew,--silver-slippered rivulets skipping into
musical abysses,--quiet pasture-lands shimmering so sleepily in the
sun that the lazy flocks and herds forget to graze, and lie winking
and ruminat