TRANSACTIONS. 189 



ployraents. It is the one great interest which underlies 

 and sustains all other interests, and compels men to enter 

 its service. He who has long tilled the soil, may weary 

 with its monotony, and for a time relinquish it for pursuits 

 he deems more congenial. But as years roll on, he ex- 

 periences cares and toil and doubt, until he longs again for 

 the fields he has left. The youth may be iaipaticnt of the 

 requirements of the farm, and forsaking the scenes of his. 

 boyhood, wander far for wealth or fame ; but the time will 

 come when he will return to occupy his neglected paternal 

 acres, or having attained the object of his wishes, will seek 

 out a rural retreat in which to spend the autumn of his 

 life, in the quiet and unobtrusive pursuits of the farm. To 

 the mechanic who can endure no longer the restraints of 

 his shop ; to the merchant who can stand no more at his 

 desk; to the soldier who lays down his sword and the 

 sailor who abandons the sea ; to the statesman who retires 

 from the field of his honors ; to the scholar and the man 

 of a profession who are worn with the mental labor of 

 life, agriculture olfers a grateful relief. 



Agriculture is a respectable vocation and has been pur- 

 sued by the noblest men in all ages. The greatest generals 

 and statesmen, the most eloquent orators and the most 

 distinguished poets, whose names are recorded on the 

 sacred or profane page, were farmers ; not mere lookers- 

 on, amateurs, gentlemen farmers; but practical, toiling 

 men, who held the plow or turned the soil with the spade. 

 We need not allude to the names of those illustrious men 

 in sacred history, who were distinguished for their posses- 

 sion of flocks and herds, or for the ownership of vast 

 acres. Civil history will furnish innumerable examples, 

 which have adorned their nation and their age. It would 

 be no new thing for you to hear of Cincinnatus, who for- 

 sook his plow at the order of the senate, to lead the 

 Roman armies to battle; who, when Rome's enemies were 

 vanquished, returned to his fields, bearing the wreath of 



