-STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 185 



deservedly liigh, not merely as farmers, but as men of abilitj^, 

 position, influence — such that if all farmers were like them, the 

 profession would be looked up to. It could no more be seen by 

 looking down than the sun at mid-day can be seen by looking upon 

 the ground. Not all of these are favorites of fortune, nor of genius 

 nor are all subjects of the best possible early training. Many of 

 them have executed a fortune out of the sod, instead of executing 

 the last will of a friend. They were not born of genius, nor were 

 they well educated in spite of themselves. With no inlierited 

 wealth, with no innate skill for managing the farm, they have 

 made their fortune and made themselves — are self-endowed, but 

 well endowed; self-made, but well made — and there are enough 

 of them to prove the assertion that agriculture, as an employment, 

 does not 7iecessarily keep the farmer down in the world, and that 

 if he fail to rise the cause must be looked for otherwhere. 



5. A great number of causes may operate to keep the farmers of 

 a given country below the position of self respect and general 

 esteem and public influence, which all right-thinking men would 

 wish them to occupy. 



Tke government may he in the faulty partly by not extending a 

 wise forethought to the great interest of agriculture, but ten times 

 more, by not encouraging tliose other industrial arts, which, if 

 prosperous, are sure to create an active demand for farm produce. 

 Exportation of farm produce is a good thing. It is well that we 

 have always had some demand from al^road; it is well prospec- 

 tively, that the demand is likely to increase; but you may talk 

 about exportation till the end of time; it never alone will make 

 a nation prosperous. That a people, with vast resources like 

 ourselves, may be comparatively })rosperous for awhile, in si)ite 

 of the folly of importing one-half of all their manufactured 

 goods, is admitted. I3ut the tendency of exchanging agricultural 

 produce fur nianufactui'ed go(jds always has been and always will 

 be, to impoverish the nation that does it. It is not what tlie 

 farmer wants. If he can half-feed the starving foreigner, wlio is 

 forgini; Ids log chain in Scotland, after the between-incn have 

 taken fifty per cent, of what the consumer tluTe pays, it is some- 

 thing; l)ut it is not encnigli; tlie farmer wants the privilege of 

 feeding tin; forger of his cliain to tlie full, not of half- feeding him; 

 of feeding him at liand, where he can take all that the forger 



