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attention, and yet many of the farmers are sick in lands, money, stocks and
cattle and might have beautiful homes
if they only knew how to appreciate them.
But they do not - everything is subservient
to utility - the question is will it pay
to day - hence wheat fields, instead of
orchards - potatoes in the front yard instead
of flowers - unsightly rail fences
instead of neat hedges and groves of
evergreens & deciduous trees, when they
might just as well have all, and
every thing in the right place.

A farmer who owns a section of
prarie, dined with me the other day
& I suggested to him the propriety of
planting a greater section in [illegible]
of the quick growing kinds, such as soft
maples, [illegible] walnuts & others. his reply
was that he might not live to see them
grow to any considerable size &c &c. - I
immediately took him to my back
door & showed him a soft maple tree