22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



WHAT THE FARM TEACHES. 



[From an Address before the Berkshire Society.] 



BY GEOKGE F. lULES. 



Whatever may be said respecting tlie superior advantages 

 offered to the farmer by other portions of our country in 

 comparison with our own Berkshire, it is well for us to rec- 

 ognize some of the conditions of every farmer's success, — 

 conditions, not of fertile soil and of personal industry, but of 

 the government under wliich the farmer lives. Other coun- 

 tries are blessed with rich lands and favoring skies ; but 

 such is the government, that the farmer cannot thrive. A 

 titled aristocracy crushes the enterprise and ambition of the 

 tenant, or a grasping monarch pours into his own coffers all 

 the profit from the labor of the husbandman. This is not 

 the case in our own country. Here faithful labor receives, . 

 to a large extent, its appropriate reward ; while the influ- 

 ence of our political institutions is such, that, if wisely ad- 

 ministered, they encourage us to plough, and to sow, and to 

 gather in the harvest made secure to us by the blessings of 

 good government. 



The farmer, then, should have the deepest interest in the 

 affairs of state. He has duties as a citizen, and these duties 

 are imperative. Too often are they neglected by those 

 whose sound judgment and practical wisdom would give an 

 entirely different direction to the course of the good " Ship 

 of State ; " while the names of men called in trjdng times 

 from the plough to the cabinet bear ample testimony to the 

 fact that the farm is a good training-school for the intelligent 

 citizen and the wise statesman. We wish to consider to-day 

 some of the lessons which the farm teaches the farmer re- 

 specting his duties as a citizen. Your farms are yielding 

 you an abundant harvest in flower and fruit and grain; 



