STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 17 



dred acres — an area of about five miles square — near the center, 

 the church, the mechanic shops, the house kept for the public 

 hospitality, the neat school house, and a few stores constitute the 

 village. The roads are well constructed. The farms are in a 

 high state of cultivation, and all the scene at once gives evidence 

 of honest and wxll rewarded industry, of high moral worth, and 

 of the dignity of Agricultural labor. 



These scenes are everywhere to be found. The beautiful 

 valleys of Pennsylvania present the same delightful vision; and 

 both only compete with the fertile plains of Ohio and the west, 

 and the more rough, but more highly cultivated fields of the 

 north and east. 



Mr. President — We cannot fix too high a value upon personal 

 laborj nor study too much to elevate it. It is not aspersed 

 except by inference, but some inferences in our day have such 

 a tendency to degrade personal labor that they need to be, 

 resisted. 



I never can consent that the non-producing class shall claim in 

 any respect a superiority over those who rise in the morning of 

 every day to daily toil, " who work, laboring with their own 

 hands " — and these give to every other class support and suste- 

 nance. " The laborer is worthy of his hire," and in this country 

 whose civil, political and social institutions are based upon prin- 

 ciples of equality, of regard to the just rights of all, it becomes 

 public duty that he be not only rewarded for that labor, but that 

 he receive all that consideration, to which his most meritorious 

 avocation shall entitle him. By what process shall labor be saved 

 in the estimation of the world from a degree of obloquy which is 

 sometimes attempted to be fastened upon it? 



There is a supposed elevation of the man who lives without 

 labor, over him who toils; as a consequence many of our young 

 men flee from the farm to the counter, and to the professions, and 

 too frequently fail of success. 



Had they been contented in their fathers' most honorable voca- 

 tion, certain success would have attended their efforts, and they 

 have lived an honored and useful life. False notions upon the 

 subject of the true elevation of farm labor destroyed them. Such 

 cases are to be found everywhere, and the evil in some sort needs 



[Ag. Trans.] B 



