se of sound judgment in the choice of stock or
crops for the farm; by economy in the disposition of everything
available upon the estate which may be brought into profitable employ;
by thrift in every operation which concerns the success of the vocation
as tillers of the soil, and by temperance and frugality in the habits
and character of the family living. 'Concentrate your labor, not
scatter it; estimate duly the superior profit of a little farm well
tilled, over a great farm half cultivated and half manured, overrun with
weeds, and scourged with exhausting crops: so we shall fill our barns,
double the winter fodder for our cattle and sheep, by the products of
these waste meadows. Thus shall our cultivation become like that of
England, more systematic, scientific, and exact.'

An Englishman belies one of the best traits of his national character if
he denies himself all participation in rural life. It is a part of
greatness to seek a gratification of this innate longing for 'the
pursuit which is most conducive to virtue and happiness.' Edmund Burke,
the patriotic and most philosophical statesman of England, writing to a
friend in 1798, says:

'I have just made a push, with all I could collect of my own and
the aid of my friends, to cast a little root in the country. I have
purchased about six hundred acres of land in Buckinghamshire, about
twenty-four miles from London. It is a place exceedingly pleasant,
and I propose, God willing, to become a farmer in good earnest.'

Great skill, ingenuity, and success in cattle breeding, and in drainage,
have resulted, in England, from a long series of experiments, extending
through many years; and great and wonderful progress in the discovery
and analysis of soils and manures. The scientific men of France and
Germany have also added much to this invaluable information of how to
get more bread and meat from the earth, and do much, in their researches
in the direction of pomology and entomology, to increase the
agricultural knowledge of the world. America gladly tenders her most
gracious homage to these devoted men, and hastens to add her leaf to the
chaplet which binds their brow. It is to their persistent efforts, to
their unshaken faith, that 'agriculture has become elevated to the
dignity of a science.'

This vocation of farming in good earnest, with success and profit, is
not fun, but downright work. It is work, but no more persistent,
constant, st