3^ 



LAND-HOLDERS, GOVERNMENT LANDS, FAIRS, Ac. 



The tillers of the soil, while they are making efforts to advance the agricul- 

 tural interest to its highest state of perfection and usefulness, ought to remem- 

 ber that much will be required of those to whom much is given. Let us not 

 forget that in the United States, with our vast extent of territory, our variety 

 of soils and climates, and our popular republican form of government, we 

 possess, to aid us in our progress, advantages for improvement far above all 

 other nations of the world. In some foreign countries a miserable kind of 

 agriculture has been carried on for ages, by people living in ignorance and 

 indigence, on lands to which they never had any settled right of possession: 

 and under the most free and enlightened governments, the great mass of prac- 

 tical farmers are tenants at will, or on short leases, bound by covenants with 

 their landlords to pursue a certain mode of cultivation. 



It is our true policy to have settled the vast domains of wild land. The 

 great law writer of the past century expressed a noble sentiment when he ex- 

 claimed — "That a freehold was the possession of the soil by a freeman." 



The sooner our lands are reduced to possession and cultivated by actual 

 settlers, the sooner you make citizens interested in all the institutions that 

 surround them. Why not open the entire vacant lands of the Union to actu- 

 al settlers ? and whenever proof is made that the settler has made improve- 

 ments to the value of the land at its present price, that the government shall 

 be bound to make him a patent therefor, without money and without price. 

 In this way you do not obtain money from the settler to fill the coffers of the 

 nation, but you do what is preferable, you hold out inducements for the labor- 

 ing man to obtain a home for himself and family. You add to the true wealth 

 of the country a far greater amount of all that is valuable and permanent, in 

 making a prosperous and happy people. 



With us, with few exceptions, the agriculturist, protected by equal laws, 

 holds his land in his own right, and cultivates it according to the dictates of 

 his own judgment. He is one of the most numerous class of citizens whose 

 prosperity is inseparably connected with the prosperity of the country. They 

 are the life-blood of the nation; and when acting in a healthy condition, they 

 promote the strength and virtue of the government, and impart life, energy 

 and prosperity to manufactures, mechanics, commerce, arts, science, and eve- 

 ry other valuable interest of the body politic. Their prosperity lies at the 

 foundation of every species of industry. 



When we, as a people, shall exhibit a well ordered system of agriculture, 

 with county. State, and National Fairs, bringing together different portions 

 of the laboring men of the country — I say when we shall do this, we will 

 learn that in this consists the strongest bond to regulate society, the sure basis 

 of peace, the best guaranty against sectional strife and divisions, tlie national 

 associations of good morals, peace and harmony in each neighborhood and 

 section of the confederacy. 



There will be exerted by these county, State and National Fairs, a most 



