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cal tendencies of those times, which gave form and being to our 

 civil institutions, will have observed that the policy adopted in 

 the first settlement of the country, by which the many became 

 invested with a substantial interest in the soil, was congenial to 

 personal independence and quickened into life the well protect- 

 ed rights and liberties we now enjoy. 



The accretion of landed estates in the hands of a few, is one 

 of the strongest pillars of support to a despotism, but will as- 

 suredly sap and raze the very foundations of a Republic, as the 

 opposite policy, laid them deep and wide in the very soil whose 

 cultivation and common enjoyment they were intended to foster 

 and protect. 



By thus placing agriculture and ownership of land as a pri- 

 mary cause, and as the cardinal policy of our government, and 

 giving it this high civil relation, it is not intended to detract 

 from, or underrate the importance of other pursuits and 

 branches of American industry, nor do I desire this view of the 

 subject to flatter the pride, which is already, perhaps, sufficiently 

 inflated, or extol the virtues which are certainly few enough, of 

 those who pursue this useful avocation, or pronounce too high 

 a panegyric upon it, to win praise or favor on this occasion of 

 the Farmer's Fair. 



I have sought to step beyond the narrow and selfish limits, 

 within which agriculture is only regarded for its utility, and as 

 a means of subsistence and the accumulation of wealth, and 

 place it in its true position, as the great humanizing and equal- 

 izing agency in the civil relations of men, and the domestic 

 policy and government; to urge upon your attention that 

 higher view of the subject, which makes the hard working and 

 enterprising farmer, who plods with patient labor from seed time 

 to harvest, in the cultivation of his land, and surrounds his 

 home and family with rural loveliness and comfort ; whose 

 yearly income is devoted with economy and prudence to the 

 improvement of his farm, the support of his family, and the ed- 

 ucation of his children ; who lives within his means and inde- 

 pendent of others, heedless of the noisy strife and broils of 

 society about him, does more, by his labors and example, to 



