In Europe all successful men look forward to the day when they can own and live upon a farm. Bismarck had his country home, and we know he prized it, for we often heard of him going there to get away from the cares of office. Going back to earlier times, we find that the great men of the world loved their country homes quite as much as the English country squire does at this day. I take down old Xenophon from its place on the bookshelf and see that he says he sees the ridges piling along the ælian fields, and from the way that he makes the remark, he loves the sight, and loves to be in the midst of such ridges, where some husbandmen are ploughing. Theocritus hears the lark that hovers over the straight laid furrows, and if Theocritus did not love such a scene and dwell in its midst, he would never have given it to us at this remote day. “Establish your farm near to market, or adjoining good roads,” old Cato says. So old Cato loved the country, and we all know his head was level. I am afraid some of us in Ontario have followed old Cato only too literally, and have built our houses almost overhanging the road-side, when they would have looked far better and presented a much prettier sight set back from the road and surrounded by trees and lawns. Hesiod tells us that we ought not to plough the land when it is too wet, and also how to put in a new plough beam to replace the broken one. Homer the Great says a farmer should keep two ploughs on hand for fear one should get broken, and he does hot forget to praise the wine which the country produces about his rural home, and adds some caution about its too copious use.