WEST OXFORD SOCIETY. 201 



I once read the biography of one, who, when a young man, 

 resided in this vilhigc, and I do not know but that, at that nge, ho 

 may have thought as liglitly of agriculture as you; but he grew 

 wiser as he grew older, and when he became an orator, second to no 

 other man living, he might be seen with his slouched hat and thick 

 boots surveying his stock, his trees, and his crops on his farm. 

 Although we may cease to read his speeches that once pulsated 

 through every fibre of the American people, and although he might 

 have been chosen President of these United States, and have honored 

 the station, yet he will be better embalmed in the memory of his 

 countrymen, who will never cease to make their pilgrimages to the 

 home of him who gloried in his old age of being called the faimer of 

 Marshfield, Five years ago this present week, the nation was called 

 to mourn his death, but he is now remembered by the masses of the 

 people quite as vividly as a farmer, as he is an orator. 



No, young men, I never yet saw an industrious farmer stand 

 trembling at the approach of a sheriff, or the suspension of a bank. 

 If his bank caves in, it is only to bring to light a deposit of brick clay 

 which will always pay good interest. The time is rapidly approach- 

 ing when the ititelligent man, who possesses a good farm free from 

 debt, will be the most independent, if not the most influential man 

 in society. 



Mr. President.^ and Gentlemen of the Agricidlural Society : 

 It was a wise remark of Lord Bacon, that " confidence lies at the 

 two extremes of knowledge." All of you, no doubt, commenced 

 life with much zeal. You planned each new undertaking with great 

 assurance of success, and it was not until you had been repeatedly 

 disappointed in your expectations, that you began to lose confidence 

 in yourselves. Was it not so? But disappointments are the school 

 of experience, and as you have grown older, jou have again become 

 more confident, because you have become more cautious. Is it not 

 so? 



No matter whether in the history of your society, or in your indi- 

 vidual history; in the construction of a dwelling house by the private 

 citizen, or a railroad by a corporation; in purchasing a cemetery lot, 

 or in cultivating a farm, there seems to be a middle period in every 

 undertaking in which the wave of prosperity has apparently reached 

 its culminating point, remains stationary for a moment, and again 



