However, a beginning is to be made, and his golden project is commenced.

He hires a man, who, he is told, is well calculated to drive the wagon, and sell what may be sent to town. Being now, as he believes, completely fixed, a well assorted load is ordered, and the man is to start early the ensuing morning. This finds employment for the market-man, and several other laborers, the whole afternoon; -for, after the vegetables, fruit, etc, have been gathered, they must be properly arranged for sale, and the people take care not to hurry themselves in this tedious employment. In fact, the gathering and fixing alone too often cost the gentleman more money than he receives for the whole load.. But the market-man has overslept himself, and before he gets cleverly settled in market, the industrious common farmer is gearing up to go home; of course, the gentleman's load hangs heavy on hand; this is soon observed by some keen-eyed huckster, who, at a proper time, makes a bid for the whole. As no purchaser had for a long time appeared, the bargain is closed, and the salesman starts for the form.

The gentleman is astonished when he sums up the scanty returns; but the market-man gives ingenious reasons why it so happened, taking care to keep the real cause out of sight; and, as he rises earlier the next trip, his returns are better, though far below his employer's expectations. Thus the business generally goes on, sometimes better, and sometimes worse, till the expected golden shower is arrested. The market-man is tempted to the tavern; the horses are left standing at the door; hunger induces them to move off. The man returns at twelve at night, and informs his employer that he stopped at a friend's house on the road; that the horses had run Off with the wagon, and he could neither find nor hear anything of them. All the men on the farm are immediately mounted, and sent off in different directions, but the team is not found till the middle of the ensuing day, with the wagon fastened between two trees. Such was Mr. Lorain's own experience.

This is a melancholy picture, too often realized by persons unused to farming; if the purse is able to bear such results, it is not so bad as where a deficiency, caused by unforeseen expenses in building and improvements, is expected to be made up by profitable sales.

The better plan is to begin moderately, with a moderate-sized farm, to study the subject a little before incurring heavy outlays, and to make improvements by degrees. Happiness does not consist in costly elegance; neatness, comfort in each department, will be first sought by a well-balanced mind; the errors we have only glanced at, it will be easy to avoid when they are pointed out in a friendly spirit; it should be the duty of friends to prevent the waste we have alluded to, by showing to the incipient city farmer, that the expenses about to be incurred may be so great as to prevent the enjoyment of the place after his death, by those for whom, probably, he had hoped he was preparing it; and even where this is not the case, he may assemble so many niceties, and expensive arrangements, that no widow, however wealthy, would choose to be burdened with maintaining them. As a looker-on, during many years of prosperity among our mercantile and professional friends, we have observed numerous instances of this mistaken policy which confounds expense with happiness, and have too often seen the great establishment abandoned, in disgust at gentleman farming.

After all, the true thing for the country is country life; city habits, and city furniture, late hours, and large parties, with accompanying headaches, do not prepare the mind to enjoy the song of the robin and the oriole. Sunday quiet, exchanged for a rush of city acquaintance, with their horses to be entertained as well as themselves, are not very acceptable to your cook and ostler; while a few congenial minds to pass a week, more or less, with you in quiet intercourse, is the summum bonum of retired leisure. It will not do to calculate, for the country, on too much enjoyment being crowded into a small space of time, for there, as elsewhere, it is not to be found. Repose, and contemplation on the duties of man's existence here, moderate work, study, and a daily effort to promote the happiness of others, will give more real satisfaction than large mirrors, and a service of gold.

Gentleman Farming #1

Very pleasant to talk about - that is, to those who know nothing at all about farming, either "gentlemanly" or vulgarly. After exhausting "Lorain," read the "Sparrowgrass Papers." I have witnessed sundry editions of gentlemanly fanning which didn't last a great while, and ending either in disgust, with a summary throwing-up of the occupation, or toning down into a practical, positive reality, like any other business in which a man proposed to make an honest livelihood.

Wonderful ideas many people have of the profession of farming 1 A deal of poetry and imagination, into which are intermingled Sylphs and Dryads; Phyl-lisses and Damons; shepherds' crooks, cottage girls, and country swains; innocent birds, bleating lambs, and various other romantic dreamings. But it is wonderful to find how soon these delectable images of agricultural bliss become spirited away on the trial. If a man have fifty thousand dollars well invested, on which he can draw punctual semi-annual dividends at six or eight per cent, then put himself and family on to a farm, well conditioned in all particulars, and children well-behaved, and not over-extravagant in their notions, and, moreover, a good ways out of town, he may, possibly, with a good deal of hard and vexatious labor, bring the year about at " gentleman farming." Otherwise, like the cobbler, he had "better stick to his last".

Why don't we hear of gentleman printers, gentleman merchants, gentleman doctors, gentleman editors, and gentleman everything else in the professional and business pursuits of life? Simply because every profession or calling in the world which amounts to anything, and by which men get their living, is followed in earnest, and those who engage in them, lay their whole talents and labors into the work, whatever it be. The great, popular mistake of those who talk of gentlemanly farming is, that they suppose the practical fanner to be a boor, of necessity, and that his calling is a vulgar one, unfit for an educated mind; yet, when sublimated by intelligence, education, and refined associations, may be made respectable 1 "Gentleman fanning" is a rank humbug, as any other profession or trade would be, followed in the same fashion - that is, by hanging out a sign, furnishing the shop, store, office, or other establishment, with its stock in trade, library, or what not, and then leaving the students, clerks, and shop-boys to take care of it, while the principal goes about the streets, talking politics, spending his daylight at the bar-room, sucking down brandy-smashes and mint juleps, or fooling away his time in any other nonsense.

That is the "gentleman" way of doing any sort of business, "fanning," or otherwise. The upshot of the matter is, a man may be a gentleman in any calling which demands the exercise of brains, ingenuity, and industry. I never yet knew a useful profession which demanded low intellect or clownish manners as a qualification for its pursuit.