76 



needs be, after going through a course of almost aimless indolence, they hare 

 acquired a smattering of some profession. 



Allow me, gentlemen, in conclusion, again to congratulate you, and our 

 fellow citizens of Elkhart county generally, upon the commencement of the 

 great work you have undertaken, and the auspicious circumstances under 

 which it has been commenced. May this work go on and prosper in your 

 hands, to that state of fuller development and maturity which we are all so 

 well convinced our highest happiness and prosperity demand. 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOSEPH R. WILLIAMS, 



Delivered before the Elkhart County Agricultural Society, at kg Jirtt annual Fait 

 at Goahen, Saturday, October 25, 1851. 



Me. Prebidkht, akd Gkntlkmkn of the Elkhakt Co AGRicuLTimAL Society : 



This is all wrong. I ought not to be here. You ought not to have invited 

 me here. A miller ought not to be invited to address farmers on their peculiar 

 employment. Each trade or pursuit should be taught and impressed practically 

 by its own followers. Each man should not only be an inquirer into all the 

 arcana of his own pursuit, but should be a teacher and a master. However, 

 at great inconvenience to myself, 1 consented to appear before you ; for who^ 

 ever does not feel an interest in agriculture, does not feel a sympathy with hia 

 race ; whoever does not regard the condition and progress of agriculture as 

 vital and important, is indifferent to the comfort, the civilization and the pro- 

 gress of mankind. I should as soon think of regarding with indifference the 

 genial influence of the sun and the showers, or the purity of the atmosphere 

 we breathe, as to be indifferent to the condition of agriculture. I offer yo» 

 my aid and sympathy, however feeble, although I can hardly claim to be 

 practically a farmer. A few months since I was inquired of, if an agricultu- 

 ral society was organized in the county in which I reside ? I answered, no. 

 "We were waiting for the farmers who had the most directly at stake, to move 

 and organize. If you wait for that, said the inquirer, and he was himself a 

 distinguished farmer, you will wait forever, for I never knew a society formed 

 that was not started by traders, professional men, county officers, &-c., while 

 the farmers came in slowly. This is shameful, if true ; and doubtless, too 

 often shamefully true. I care not under what auspices your society is organ- 

 ized. I congratulate you on its existence. Here let me exhort every mau 

 within hearing of my voice, to co-operate in the work before you with earnest- 

 ness, with sincerity, and a mind open to the reception of knowledge. It is a 

 melancholy fact, that while the followers of nearly every other pursuit have 

 been eager to adopt every new principle or discovery, and vied with each other 

 In the acquisition and trial of every new invention, the practicers of the great 



