ring our long and cold winters! We have fine weather to
begin with, and I hope it will continue.

I think a very great improvement might be made in our rakes. Why
need they be so heavy for light raking? We could take up the
heavier ones when it became necessary.

July 3. To-day I have worked rather too hard in order to get in
some of our hay, for there is a prospect of rain. I am not quite
sure, however, but I hurt myself more by drinking too much cold
water than by over-working. Will try to do better to-morrow.

4. Have heard a few cannon fired, and a spouting oration delivered,
and seen a few toasts drank; and what does it all amount to? Is
this way of keeping the day of independence really useful? I doubt
it. Who knows but the value of the wine which has been drank,
expended among the poor, would have done more towards _real_
independence, than all this parade?

5. Rainy. Would it not have been better had I staid at home
yesterday, while the weather was fair, and gone on with haying?
Several acres of father's grass want cutting very much. I am more
and more sick of going to independence. If I live till another
year, I hope I shall learn to 'make hay while the sun shines.'

I selected a common agricultural employment to illustrate my subject,
first, because I suppose a considerable proportion of my readers are
farmers, and secondly, because it is an employment which is generally
supposed to furnish little or nothing worth recording. The latter,
however, is a great mistake. Besides writing down the real incidents
that occur, many of which would be interesting, and some of them highly
important facts, the _thoughts_, which the circumstances and incidents
of an agricultural life are calculated to elicit, are innumerable. And
these should always be put down. They are to the mere detail of facts
and occurrences, what leaves and fruit are to the dry trunk and naked
limbs of a tree. The above specimen is very dry indeed, being intended
only as a hint. Pages, instead of a few lines, might sometimes be
written, when our leisure permitted, and thoughts flowed freely.

One useful method of improving the mind, and preparing ourselves for
usefulness, would be, to carry a small blank book and pencil in our
pockets, and when any interesting fact occurred, embrace the first
spare moment to put it down, say on the right hand page; and either
then, or at