Every Station of Life has Duties which are proper to it.  Those who are determined by Choice to any particular kind of Business, are indeed more happy than those who are determined by Necessity, but both are under an equal Obligation of fixing on Employments, which may be either useful to themselves or beneficial to others.  No one of the Sons of Adam ought to think himself exempt from that Labour and Industry which were denounced to our first Parent, and in him to all his Posterity.  Those to whom Birth or Fortune may seem to make such an Application unnecessary, ought to find out some Calling or Profession for themselves, that they may not lie as a Burden on the Species, and be the only useless Parts of the Creation.

Many of our Country Gentlemen in their busie Hours apply themselves wholly to the Chase, or to some other Diversion which they find in the Fields and Woods.  This gave occasion to one of our most eminent English Writers to represent every one of them as lying under a kind of Curse pronounced to them in the Words of Goliah, I will give thee to the Fowls of the Air, and to the Beasts of the Field.

Tho’ Exercises of this kind, when indulged with Moderation, may have a good Influence both on the Mind and Body, the Country affords many other Amusements of a more noble kind.

Among these I know none more delightful in itself, and beneficial to the Publick, than that of PLANTING.  I could mention a Nobleman whose Fortune has placed him in several Parts of England, and who has always left these visible Marks behind him, which show he has been there:  He never hired a House in his Life, without leaving all about it the Seeds of Wealth, and bestowing Legacies on the Posterity of the Owner.  Had all the Gentlemen of England made the same Improvements upon their Estates, our whole Country would have been at this time as one great Garden.  Nor ought such an Employment to be looked upon as too inglorious for Men of the highest Rank.  There have been Heroes in this Art, as well as in others.  We are told in particular of Cyrus the Great, that he planted all the Lesser Asia.  There is indeed something truly magnificent in this kind of Amusement:  It gives a nobler Air to several Parts of Nature; it fills the Earth with a Variety of beautiful Scenes, and has something in it like Creation.  For this Reason the Pleasure of one who Plants is something like that of a Poet, who, as Aristotle observes, is more delighted with his Productions than any other Writer or Artist whatsoever.

Plantations have one Advantage in them which is not to be found in most other Works, as they give a Pleasure of a more lasting Date, and continually improve in the Eye of the Planter, When you have finished a Building or any other Undertaking of the like Nature, it immediately decays upon your Hands; you see it brought to its utmost Point of Perfection, and from that time hastening to its Ruin.  On the contrary, when you have finished your Plantations, they are still arriving at greater Degrees of Perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every succeeding Year than they did in the foregoing.