386 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



neighborhood has them. You all know them ; they all have the 

 same stripe and general semblance that identifies them at once, 

 and in scaliness exceed anything yet investigated. 



Why wonder that this is so ; has it not always been so ? Shall 

 it always be so ? Unless in new countries and under new govern- 

 ments, it has always been the same. Are we, by their appearance 

 and existence among us, outgrowing our equality ? Are we 

 assuming the conditions that have belonged to all other plundered 

 nations ? There were always a few who have withstood the 

 current ; but never enough to save justice, honor or liberty. 

 Parasites will feed on producers and industry so long as the pro- 

 ducing classes are ignorant — so long as they are not qualified 

 for the position they ought to occupy. I regard the calling of 

 the class that feeds and clothes the world as a very high one in- 

 deed, and entitled to the highest honors ; but its history is that it 

 has always been kept down, as a whole, to the lowest levels. All- 

 deserving, holding the elements of strength and prestige, it never 

 yet learned to wear them for its own advantage. Its brains were 

 never yet cultivated enough, nor its heart sufficiently refined. It 

 has not sought to grace its bronzed features and plain apparel 

 with manners sufficiently noble and elevated ; nor taught its lips 

 to speak on all occasions becomingly of the rights which belong 

 to those for whom the earth was made and first given. 



Of all classes, producers should be the most independent, up- 

 right and accomplished ; nor should they be alive with political 

 parasites or professional vermin. The fruits of their industry 

 should not be distributed for them, but by them, and after a 

 princely style, with due appreciation of what belongs to every 

 other interest, in society and government. When they enter a 

 city, they should be as much at home and as welcome in the 

 tradesman's parlors as in their shops. They who have made the 

 landscape should be a good judge of a painting of it. They who 

 live on the soil and among plants and trees, should be at home in 

 the green-house or hanging garden, which are, at least, but poor 

 apologies for the spontaneous productions of the country. They 

 who have in charge the tilling and fertilizing of the ground, ought 

 not to be mere gaping spectators in the laboratory of the chemist ; 

 nor should they who live out of doors and in close proximity with 

 all the glorious works of nature, suffer some closet student from 

 the city to teach them about natural history, geology, or any of 

 the natural sciences. More than a king should the producer be 



