says. On applying to
the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a
dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know
the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are
mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it
is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are
three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants,--that a
very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to
fail,--is equally true of the farmers.... Yet the Middlesex Cattle-Show
goes off here with _eclat_ annually, as if all the joints of the
agricultural machine were suent."

If you do not trust the testimony of books, but will turn to living men,
you will scarcely fare better. One man, whose recreations have been
rural, but his business civic, conducts you through his groves and
summer-houses, his stone barns and his latticed cottages, but tempers
your enthusiasm with the remark, that this fancy farming is sowing
ninepences to reap sixpences. Relinquishing fancy farms, you go to the
practical man swinging his scythe in his hay-field, his shirt-sleeves
rolled above his elbows, and his trousers tucked into his boots. He
shows you the face-walls and the compost-heap, the drains and the
resultant hay-cocks, with measurable pride, but tells you at the same
time that every dollar he has earned on that farm has cost him nine
shillings. This will never do. A third farmer has inherited his farm,
not only without incumbrance, but with money at interest. Under his
hands it waxes fat and flourishing, and sends to market every year its
twelve or fifteen hundred dollars' worth of produce. But you overhear
its owner telling his neighbor that "it's a Cain's business, this
farming: make any man cross enough to kill his brother!" You find this
farmer racked with rheumatism, though in the prime of life,--bent with
the weight of years before his time. He has lost his health just as he
has improved his farm, by working early and late through sun and rain.
You turn to still another farm, whose owner brings the learning of a
college as well as the muscles of a yeoman to the culture of the soil.
His nurseries and orchards are thrifty, his cattle sleek and
comfortable, his yards broad, cleanly, and sunny. His fields wave with
plenty, his granary overflows. Here, surely, you have struck into the
Happy Valley. Here at last Tityrus reposes under th