Letters of a Citizen to his Friends in the Country.

No 1.

The establishment of a periodical work, designed in part for circulation among my agricultural fellow citizens, furnishes an opportunity which I have often desired, to address you. In contemplating the dignity and utility which are combined in the occupations of an American husbandman, in estimating the extent of influence which belongs to his character, and regarding his elevated independence, I have long since been led to the conclusion, that the Farmers of the soil form the basis of the nation's strength, and ought largely to contribute to its ornament.

In the occasional communications which I propose to make to you through this medium, I shall adopt a plain, familiar, and candid manner; and endeavour to point not only at those errors which certainly exist, but also attempt to suggest how they can be most effectually removed.

"What!" methinks I hear some hardy son of the field exclaim—"who is this that promises to improve our mode of farming?" A Citizen, forsooth. Now let us at the threshold understand each other. I do not intend to meddle much, if at all, with your system of agriculture, though I conceive it quite possible for a man who has been born and educated in a city, to furnish important hints for the improvement of rural affairs. My purpose is to interest your attention with subjects which may tend to enlarge and elevate your minds. It is a lamentable fact, that too little regard is paid to intellectual cultivation, among those who till the earth.

A well managed farm, supplied with substantial buildings, and under good fence, is creditable to its possessor, and forms a part of the public wealth. Every individual who thus improves his land, not only enriches himself, but should be considered as a benefactor of the commonwealth. Here, unhappily, the energies of the farmer are limited. This is a radical error. With the pecuniary means which his industry has accumulated, he should increase his own intelligence, and confer upon his children the benefits of substantial education. I do not admit as truth, what is frequently asserted, that the best examples of morality and virtue are to be met with in the country; for whereever the improvement of the mind is neglected, those ennobling qualities will be rarely found. It is idle to suppose that our intellectual capacities will yield fruits which dignify and adorn our nature, if they be solely devoted to increase our worldly possessions. The plough turns up from the soil no nourishment for the mind, neither do the scythe and sickle prostrate the vices of the heart.

Abstractedly, therefore, a man may be as destitute of good principles who lives amidst rural scenes, as he whose pursuits confine him to the busy haunts and contagious influences of the multitude.

But I am beginning to lecture before I have an audience. I took up the pen merely to introduce my proposals to your notice. You have a specimen of my way of thinking. If you like it, so much the better; if not, I cannot promise to serve a more palatable dish—but am always your friend,

Civis.

[The subject of the Missouri state bill, involves, in our opinion, an agricultural question, important to the last degree to the farmers of America:—Whether that great country west of the Mississippi, compared with which all the United States are small, shall, in future ages, be dotted over with pleasant villages and comfortable farm houses, and cultivated by the industrious owners of the soil, each vieing with his neighbour in beautifying the face of nature: or be blotted and defaced by innumerable wretched habitations of miserable slaves, with here and there, on distant eminences, the lone mansions of their masters. Whether that great country, now left rich by nature, shall be converted into barren wastes by continued exhausting crops of tobacco and Indian corn, without one shovel-ful of manure to invigorate the expiring soil, as has been the case in some of the fine districts of Virginia and Maryland; or whether it shall be covered with luxuriant fields of wheat, rich meadows and innumerable herds.—Viewing this great national question, so intimately connected with our favourite subject, we feel the more interest by giving an insertion to the following communication of our correspondent Sandiford.]—Ed.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.