In Switzerland we find the primitive husbandry of the mountain flourishing side by side with modern industrial commercial enterprise. Of much Swiss agriculture it is still true, “_pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit_.” The minute division of the land and the cheapness of labor do not justify the general use of modern labor-saving agricultural implements. For cutting, threshing, and winnowing purposes the scythe, flail, and winnowing-basket are used. The scythe is apparently an exact counterpart of that which is seen in the hands of “Time” in the school primer. The plough would adorn an archæological collection; requiring four horses and three men to work it, and cutting only one furrow. Instead of the harrow or cultivator, a number of women and children, armed with clubs, go over the ground after it is ploughed, and pulverize the surface. Swiss soil is but little desecrated by the “devil-driven machinery of modern times;” and the Swiss farmer has been equally faithful in regarding the first and disregarding the second advice given in the distich of Pope,-- “Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”[78] The peasant farmer must needs apply a high order of management and economy. This economy must be discerning, and he cannot take readily to new ideas that do not assure him a better result for his hard-earned money. This close farming yields very fair results to the small owners, who, with their sons and daughters, have an interest in the soil and a taste for the business. However, each change in the way of modern improvement in its turn is fighting for establishment. The old methods have prescription, tradition, custom to support them; the new, utility and necessity. In the early stage, what was needed for each Swiss peasant farmer was a little bit of land, a cow or two, a spade, a manure basket, and a wife to carry it. This was the caterpillar stage. They are very gradually passing into the butterfly stage. They are beginning to evolve the capacity for collecting and turning to account capital, the distilled essence of all property without which the land cannot be made much of now. Life to-day does not require the tough hide, the strong sinews, the gross stomach, the adstriction to a single spot of the old life; on the contrary, a vastly enlarged mobility, both of body and mind, a readiness for turning anything to account, and for entering on any opening have become necessary. If what is wanted and needed cannot be found at home, be willing and disposed to go seek it elsewhere.