zest. Other pleasures pall with time and are satiated. We outgrow them.
But every spring is a new revelation, every summer a fresh, original
chapter of experience, and every autumn a fruition of hopes as well as of
seeds and buds. Nothing can conduce more to happiness and prosperity than
multitudes of rural homes. In such abodes you will not find Socialists,
Nihilists, and other hare-brained reformers who seek to improve the world
by ignoring nature and common-sense. Possession of the soil makes a man
conservative, while he, at the same time, is conserved.

The culture of the land is no longer plodding, ox-like drudgery, nor is
the farm a place of humdrum, brainless routine. Science offers her aid on
every hand, and beauty, in numberless forms, is ever present to those who
have eyes and hearts capable of recognizing it. The farmer has a literature
of his own, which every year is growing in proportions and value. He also
has time for the best literature of the world. It is his own fault if he
remains akin to the clod he turns. Is it not more manly to co-work with
Nature for a livelihood than to eke out a pallid, pitiful existence behind
a counter, usurping some woman's place?

Nature is a good mother, after all, in our latitude. She does not coddle
and over-indulge her children, but rewards their love abundantly,
invigorates them if they dwell in her presence, and develops mind and
muscle, heart and soul, if they obey her laws and seek to know her well.
Although infinitely rich, she has not the short-sighted folly of those
parents who seek to place everything in the hand of a child without cost.
On the contrary, she says, "See what you may win, what you may attain."
Every crop is a prize to knowledge, skill, industry. Every flower is a
beautiful mystery which may be solved in part; every tree is stored
sunshine for the hearth, shelter from the storm, a thing of beauty while
it lives, and of varied use when its life is taken. In animals, birds,