rticulturist, or florist, in which he is in constant
communication with nature and her beauty. 'In it there is no corruption,
but rather goodness.'

How kindly nature seems to have dealt with some of the old farmers who
even now tread the broad earth, beloved and reverenced by all who know
them! What simplicity and purity of speech; what honesty of manner; what
kind dispositions; what charity of judgment; what tenderness of heart;
what nobility of soul seem to have concentrated in each one of them!
They are the gifts of nature, gathered, developed, interpreted,
personified in man. They are our aristocracy. From them through
generation after generation shall flow the pure blood of the best men in
republican America. Ages hence, the children who enjoy the privileges of
this republic, and endeavor to trace their lineage through history to
find the fountain of their present American stock, will as surely meet
with no unpleasant encounter, nor be compelled to forego the search from
fear of mortification, as they trace their family line through long
generations of intelligent American farmers. Superficial 'Young America'
and 'our best society' may smirk, snicker, sneer, and live on, slaves to
fashion and the whims of Mrs. Grundy, in their fancied secure social
position for all time. But ere long the balance of man's better
judgment, the best society of great men, and representatives for history
of a great people, will weigh in opposite scales the artificialities,
the formalities, the selfishness of popular social circles, against the
honesty, the naturalness, the simplicity, the worth of the practical
lovers of nature; and the result shall be the inscription upon the wall
which made their prototypes of old tremble, reflecting upon them also
its ghostly and terrific glare. Were it not for the infusion almost
constantly going on, from the country, of fresh blood into the veins of
the diseased body politic in our largest cities, destruction, disgrace,
and financial ruin would early mark the spot where once flourished a
proud and sinful people.

In farming, man has to do with nature. Out of doors he spends the
greater portion of his life. His intelligent eye takes in the beautiful
objects of land and sky, sea and mountain; his refined ear, by practice
and cultivation, delights in the exquisite harmony of the birds, the
music of the wind, the murmuring of the sea, the sighing amid the
forests;--the beauty of the flowers, springin