STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 313 



law of trutb, right and justice. And now I may add that a very bad 

 man in the country must be akin to the devil. The outward solicitations 

 to evil are not so imperious there. The spirit of cupidity and gain rages 

 in the country, but as competitions are not so sharply defined, and the 

 clashings of self interest so fierce and hotly contested as in the city, the 

 torrent is less apt to sweep you away. In the city the spirit of avarice 

 is intensified into a furnace heat. The only problem seems to be how to 

 make the most money in the shortest time. If conscience should stray 

 out of the Sabbath and get in the way, it must be run over. Hence you 

 may pass across the diameter of the city and scarcely see anything to 

 remind you of God and eternal things, unless it be the passing of a funeral 

 cortege, casting its silent and transient lesson upon the hurrying scene. 

 There is certainly more danger of men being wrecked upon these wild 

 social breakers than those who are further out upon a calmer sea In the 

 city the incentives to jovial vice, amorous and dissolute pleasures, and 

 wasteful indulgences are tricked out in their most showy and witching 

 costumes. Even the fine arts, poetiy, music, painting, wit and beauty 

 all combine to give a picturesque charm to the broad road, and conceal 

 the dismal abyss in which it terminates. Now. you who live in the coun- 

 try are not drummed and serenaded by the devil in this way. Fewer 

 temptations stray into the country and prowl among the fields, and 

 therefore we naturally expect to find more virtue and temperance in the 

 rural home. Then, again, the dwellers in the country are not so much 

 annoyed by those little cares and frets that disturb the equanimity of 

 city people. You have no city taxes to paj T . You are not worried by 

 butchers' bills, gas bills, water bills and rent bills every da}'. Mother 

 Grundy's eye is not upon you every time you step out of the gate. 

 There is no water or chalk in your milk. Your butter is not strong 

 enough to walk. Y"our fruits and vegetables are always fresh and 

 savory. You have your local cares and troubles, I know. It is very 

 aggravating to have your crops damaged by breechy cattle, or the dogs to 

 get among your sheep, but on the whole, there is no mode of life so con- 

 ducive to a serene, happy and contented existence as the farmer. 



And now let me exhort you to magnify your calling. It may be made 

 the school of some of the noblest and most amiable virtues that' can 

 adorn humanity. No clan is so independent and free. The financial 

 storms that topple down the great commercial houses that stand on the 

 contingencies of trade do not desolate your quiet so severely. 



Remember that agriculture is the chief source of the nation's wealth. 

 Commerce exchanges it. Manufactures only improve its quality. But 

 agriculture is the productive power that multiplies it. Without the 

 farmer the loom would stand idle, the mill cease to hum, the locomotive 

 rust on the iron rail and the great ships drop to pieces in the harbor. 

 Without agriculture, in fact, these great symbols of utilitarian invention 

 and activity could never have come into existence. 



Agriculture fosters the patriotic spirit. The fee simple to a spot of 

 ground is the germ of liberty. The man who stands upon his own soil 

 feels that his personal interest is bound up in the honor and inviolability 

 of the law that protects him. He feels that of the great globe, fashioned 

 by the hand of God and sent wheeling through boundless space, a cer- 

 tain portion is his, from the centre to the stars; and this consciousness 

 of independence kindles the love of freedom. 



And let we also congratulate this society on the stability agriculture 



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