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Not only the art of the farmer, the general direction of the

operations of husbandry, but many inferior branches of country

labour require much more skill and experience than the greater

part of mechanic trades. The man who works upon brass and iron,

works with instruments, and upon materials of which the temper is

always the same, or very nearly the same. But the man who ploughs

the ground with a team of horses or oxen, works with instruments

of which the health, strength, and temper, are very different

upon different occasions. The condition of the materials which he

works upon, too, is as variable as that of the instruments which

he works with, and both require to be managed with much judgment

and discretion. The common ploughman, though generally regarded

as the pattern of stupidity and ignorance, is seldom defective in

this judgment and discretion. He is less accustomed, indeed, to

social intercourse, than the mechanic who lives in a town.