STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 15 



railroads, and filled all with plenty for their thronging millions — 

 is this grand 1 



How much grander then, is the contemplation of that Free 

 Labor which has produced them all ! that well requited and paid 

 industry, without which none of these things had heen^ or heing^ 

 had been a blot and a stain upon them all. 



The moral grandeur and dignity of agricultural labor is in part 

 my theme. 



I refer not here to those labor-saving machines which so well 

 subserve the cause of agriculture, and give character and honor 

 to our age. They claim a meed of praise on every suitable occa- 

 sion. Their influence is everywhere felt and acknowledged. 

 They are rapidly hastening us along in the road to national wealth, 

 and promise to make us the granary of the world. 



But they did not fell the forests — they did not roll the logs; the 

 wilderness could only be assailed single handed, and nothing but 

 the axe and fire-brand of the pioneer was adequate to its destruc- 

 tion. 



Who has not seen him, as solitary in his own self-reliance, he 

 walks into the heart of the forest, builds his bark cabin, far re- 

 moved from roads, from neighbors, from all the comforts and 

 refinements of life, from social privileges and enjoyments, and 

 there, axe in hand, commencing his attacks upon that forest in 

 expectation of making it " to bud and blossom as the rose." 



Who that has considered the labor and toil, the self-denial 

 and perseverance necessary to subdue that forest, has not given 

 " the honor to valor due" — to that pioneer of civilization? 



And who, when after a few years have passed, has seen in place 

 of that forest, the broad fields of luxuriant harvests, the cities, 

 the churches, the luxuries of life, the dense and teeming popula- 

 tion, the canals, tlie railroads, and all the appliances of the civ- 

 ilization of the nineteenth century, has not bowed in homage to 

 the dignity of human labor. 



The individual man who wields the axe and fire-brand, clearing 

 the way for all of health and liaj)}>iness wliich follow in liis train, 

 is the pioneer hero of agricultural labor, and wlienever seen is 

 worthy of high regard for his work's sake. 



So too, all that ^reat class of men, who, leaving the comforts of 

 home, go fortli as explorers and settlers in new fields, whetlier of 



