A'plea For The Farmer's Life

"How to make farming moro attractive, so as to keep the young people of thb country more generally on the paternnl acres," is the question which is forcing itself upon the people of our small rural towns, and ho who will furnish a true answer to it will help to stay the tide of emigration from the old honiestead to our business centros. First of all, the minds of young men ■ihould be disabused of thcir fiilse ideas as to the gentility of the farmer's occupation. It is one of the most honorable of callingR. Tt was man's original work to till the soil. Also it is truly ennobling. it brings hira right into communion witíi nature. There is somothing exhilarating in eeeing the morning sun gild the horizon and fill the landscape with glory ; and breathing the fresh air of the hills, nd beholding everything rcvived by the presence of the sun. It lifts np the niind from earth to heaven, and filis it ■with pure thoughts. Tbrough the day, the tiller of the field has for his companionssunshineand bright clouds, and siveet zephyrs whisper in his ears. It is not a few patches of sky that we tee in the country, but each man can look upon the ■whole heaven ; indeed, philosophers teil us that each one has his own horizon, which changes with overy teps he takcp. Then there is somethiug enuobling in 6ubduing the soil and making it minieter to our comfort. It may be covered with tough bogs, or overrun with briers and weeds, or be a cold, moist swarnp, but the skill of the farmer bringg" it under cultivation, and makes it yield precious grain and the most luscious fruits. I wonder not that an old man lingers upon the place which he has subdued, and is reluctant to leave the farm in his old age, where hia own labor has wrought groat changes. In a very important sense the grass grows and the eorn springs up where the farmer bids it, and the grain wives where he chooses to scatter it. The trees lift up their heads where ho sets them, and roses bloom where he plants thein. The care and the management of the animáis of the farm, too, ennobles one. How large I used to feel in driving the young cattle home from the " hill pasture" in the fall of the year, and you rnay be Bure that my voice sounded very nruch liko. that of a young drover. And then, the day after thanksgiv-ing,. we boys had "breaking steers for pastime, and' was it mere faney that made the little driver step so grandly along by the sido of the team, or was there not something inspiring to a boy in subduing a pair of twoyear-olds 'i And the man who watches froro Veek to week the growth of the petted members of the herd, moves among the graceful, gentle, promising Alderneys, or careases the sleek, well-proportioned forras of his Shorthorns, and 'injpwi that His skill and his care have mide ' thon nobler works of tbo great Creator, is he not elevated and made a better man by every hour ho sponds iimons the herd P Who would not covet thi tnsk of drivincr on tho road a wollmatched pair of spiritod horses, or followinc; them sacb day amonf tho fresh furrows of tlie field, or along the margin of tho wavingr grass? Thero novor was a grepter inistako than to nssociate farminft with humilifttion ; and to bo ashamed of the ooarso frock, tho heavy boots, and tho weatherbeaten hat, is an error indeed. The sunburnt faco and the calloiis hand are the iiiarks of nature's nobkmen, and we want our younjf men to havo pride in tliciï). We must moro frequontly remind them that the dress is not the man, but the mind, the soul is, and that it elevates and ennobles that mind to be brought into immediste contact with tiature, and to commune with her, as tho earncst farmer does nearly every day of his life.