116 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



comparatively solitary. But for most men society is indis- 

 pensable to the completest mental development. Especially 

 is it needful to that quickness of mind demanded in the 

 stress and hurry of our modern life. An hour of hand-to- 

 hand fight in argument will do more for most men in excit- 

 ing the mental faculties, and in striking out new thoughts, 

 than would days of private meditation. Here, it seems to 

 me, we have the capital deficiency of the farmer's intellect- 

 ual life ; not in soundness of thought, but in alertness of 

 thought. I should have as much confidence in the average 

 farmer's judgment on ordinary subjects, when arrived at, as 

 in that of most other men ; but, if I were in a hurry, I should 

 not like to stay until he had made up his mind. How the 

 contrast strikes one in passing immediately from country to 

 city ! TheVe questions are answered almost before they are 

 asked. The change is ready for the customer before he has 

 had time to even guess at its amount. Vanderbilt would 

 negotiate the purchase of a thousand miles of railroad, or of 

 ten millions of government bonds, in the time it takes the 

 tyi^ical farmer to sell a bushel of potatoes or to exchange 

 morning salutions with his neighbor. In estimating the 

 correctness of this opinion, you must not take such commu- 

 nities as most of those represented here, where so many 

 quickening influences come in to modify the distinctive fea- 

 tures of agricultural life : you must take communities purely 

 agricultural. You must take farmers as a class. And noth- 

 ing, I think, can be more evident than that they are charac- 

 terized by a moderation of mental movement, marking them 

 off at a glance from men of most other occupations. And 

 there can be no doubt that they are, in consequence, placed 

 at a disadvantage in the competitions of life. It is an inter- 

 esting fact in the political history of the country, that so 

 many of our prominent politicians and statesmen have risen 

 from the shoemaker's bench. And what was the reason? 

 Evidently the constant friction of mind with mind to Avliich 

 the shoemaker's calling as formerly conducted gave oppor- 

 tunity. He could talk and argue as he worked; and, liaving 

 always an audience or opponents in his customers or fellow- 

 workmen, latent talent was developed, and his mind was 

 trained to an activity that prepared him eventually for the 

 halls of legislation and the seat of magistracy, as in the case 



