men keep the farm in reserve as an asylum, where, in case of mischance, to hide their property, or a solitude if they do not succeed in society. And who knows how many glances of remorse are turned this way from the bankrupts of trade, from mortified pleaders in courts and senates, or from the victims of idleness and pleasure! Poisoned by town life and town vices, the sufferer resolves :- Well, my children, whom I have injured, shall go back to the land, to be recruited and cured by that which should have been my nursery, and now shall be their hospital.'

The farmer has grave trusts confided to him. In the great household of nature, the farmer stands at the door of the bread-room and weighs to each his load. Then he is the Board of Quarantine. The farmer is the hoarded capital of health, as he is also the capital of wealth, and it is from him that the health and the power, moral and intellectual, of the cities come. The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the drivingwheels of trade, politics, or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers' hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows, in poverty, necessity, and darkness. In English factories, the boy who watches the loom, to tie the threads when the wheel stops, to indicate that the thread is broken, is called a minder. And in this great factory of our Copernican globe, shifting its slides, rotating its constellations, times and tides; bringing now the day of planting, then of watering, then of weeding, then of reaping, then of curing and storing-the farmer is the minder. His machine is of colossal proportions; the diameter of the water-wheel, the arms of the levers, the power of the battery, are out of all mechanic measure; and it takes him long to understand its parts and its working. This pump never 'sucks;' these screws are never loose; this machine is never out of gear; the vat and piston-wheels and tires never wear out, but are self-repairing. We see the farmer with pleasure and respect, when we think what powers and utilities are so meekly worn. He knows every secret of labor. He changes the face of the landscape. Put him on a new planet and he would know where to begin; yet there is no arrogance in his bearing, but a perfect gentleness. The farmer stands well on the world. Plain

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THE CANADIAN FARMER'S SONG.

in manners as in dress, he would not shine in palaces; he is absolutely unknown and inadmissible therein. Living or dying he never shall be heard of in them. Yet the drawingroom heroes put down beside him would shrivel in his presence the solid and unexpressive, they expressed to gold leaf. But he stands well on the world, as Adam did, as an Indian does, as Homer's heroes, Agamemnon and Achilles, do. He is a person whom a poet of any clime-Milton or Cervantes— would appreciate, as being really a piece of the old nature, comparable to sun and moon, rainbow and flood; because he is, as all natural persons are, representative of nature as much as these. That uncorrupted behaviour which we admire in animals and in young children belongs to him, to the hunter, the sailor-the man who lives in the presence of nature. Cities force growth, and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is the natural part of each, its constitutional excellence. This is for ever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it, and it is this which the conversation with nature cherishes and guards.

-Country Gentleman's Magazine.

THE CANADIAN FARMER'S SONG.

LET the cities proud boast long and loud
Of their palaces fair and grand;

In the country wide, spread on every side,
Are the works of our Father's hand.

Though our fate may seem, to some idler's dream,
A toilsome and weary lot,

Yet peace and health are the priceless wealth
That are found in the settler's cot.

We are freemen good-not a slave ever stood
On our loved Canadian soil-

No tyrant's power can withhold for an hour
The fruits of our honest toil.

Tho' the son of the soil has a life of toil,

Yet calm and sweet is his rest;

He wakes from his dreams, ere the Day King's beams
Have shone on the blue-jay's nest.

He drinks of the rills that gush from the hills,
And the soil he tills is his own;

And as happy and free as a king is he-
Who bows but to God alone.

When the welcome Spring comes on golden wing,
In the sugar-bush, blithe and free,
We gather with care the life-blood rare,
That flows from the maple tree.

And we plough and sow in hope, for we know,
If we waste the beautiful Spring,

Our regret will be vain, when in Winter's reign
Gaunt Famine is on the wing.

When the Autumn yields the fruits of the fields,
A reward for our toil is given:

We thankfully take her gifts, which bespeak
The love of our Father in heaven.

When the wintry blast goes howling past,
Spreading sorrow and want in its way,

By the bright maple fire, safe from rude Winter's ire,
We sit at the close of the day.

And our songs of praise we joyfully raise,

High over stern Nature's strife,

As to Heaven ascend thanks for home and friends,
And the joys of a Farmer's life.

-DEWART.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

It leads to an

WIDE is the scope of Natural Philosophy. acquaintance with the laws that keep the planets in their undeviating path; it treats of the phenomena of the earth, the air, and the ocean; of the simple principles of mechanism that man employs; of the falling of the silent dew or the rushing of the roaring cataract; of the heat of summer and the frost of winter; of the zephyr-breeze or the destructive tornado; of the swimming of fishes or the flying of birds; of the ripple of the placid lake or the mountain waves of the ocean; of the grace, motion and powers of the human form; of the mechanism of the voice, the ear, and the eye.

By an acquaintance with its first principles-the embellishments of a palace, the necessities of a cottage, the swinging of a carriage, and the management of a dray, are all better

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NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

accomplished. The elasticity of air and steam, that drives the vessel despite of tide or wind, or sends tons of merchandize with surprising velocity to the extremes of a kingdom, are by its teaching comprehended. Knowing the cause of the awful voice of thunder, of the terrific destruction of lightning, and of the peaceful beauties of the rainbow, much ignorant teaching is dispelled. Man has so advanced in his comprehension of nature, that he chains one of the most fearful elements to his use, which he guides and directs as if it were possessed of the feebleness of a helpless babe; with it he sends his thoughts with a speed surpassing the rapid flight of time. No one can feel but abashed at not understanding the simple principles that produce such seemingly miraculous effects.

It is the duty of the natural philosopher, and the student in physics, to ascertain the nature and causes of the mysterious phenomena by which we are surrounded. Ultimate causes are certainly beyond our powers of analysis; we may approximate to a knowledge of some of them, but we cannot ascertain their nature, or the actual extent of their influence. Nearly all the appearances in nature may be resolved into the production of motion; and we are able to ascertain its laws, but cannot discover its origin.

The most important progress in Natural Philosophy by which the present century is distinguished, has been the discovery of a general law which embraces and rules all the various branches of physic and chemistry. This law is of as much importance for the highest speculations on the nature of forces, as for immediate and practical questions in the construction of machines. This law is now known by the name of "the principle of conservation of force." It might be better perhaps to call it, with Mr. Rankine, "the conservation of energy," because it does not relate to that which we call commonly intensity of force. It does not mean that the intensity of the natural force is constant; but it relates more to the whole amount of power which can be gained by any natural process, and by which a certain amount of work can be done. For example if we apply this law to gravity, it does not mean, what is strictly and undoubtedly true, that the intensity of the gravity of any given body is the same as often as the body is brought back to the same distance from the centre of the earth. Or with regard to the other elementary forces of nature, chemical force: when two

:

chemical elements come together, so that they influence each other either from a distance or by immediate contact, they will always exert the same force upon each other-the same force both in intensity, and in its direction, and in its quantity. This other law, indeed, is true; but it is not the same as the principle of conservation of force. We may express the meaning of the law of conservation of force by saying, that every force of nature, when it effects any alteration, loses and exhausts its faculty to effect the same alteration a second time. But while, by every alteration in nature, that force which has been the cause of this alteration is exhausted, there is always another force which gains as much power of producing new alterations in nature as the first has lost. Although, therefore, it is the nature of all inorganic forces to become exhausted by their own working, the power of the whole system in which these alterations take place, is neither exhausted nor increased by quantity, but only changed in form. Some special examples will enable us better to understand this law than any general theories. To begin with gravity,-that most general force, which not only exerts its influence over the whole universe, but which at the same time supplies the motive power to a very large number of our machines. Clocks and smaller machines are generally set in motion by a weight. The same is really the case with water-mills. Water-mills are driven by falling water, and it is the gravity, the weight of the falling water, which moves the mill. Now by water mills, or by a falling weight, any machine can be put in motion; and by such motive power every sort of work can be done which can be done at all by any machine. Therefore the weight of a heavy body, either solid or fluid, which descends from a higher place to a lower place is a motive power, and can do every sort of mechanical work. But if the weight has fallen down to the earth, then it has the same amount of gravity, the same intensity of gravity; and its power to move, its power to work, is exhausted; it must become again raised before it can work anew. In this sense, therefore, the faculty of producing a new work is exhausted-is lost; and this holds true of every power of nature, when this power has once produced alteration. -HOGG.