THE AMERICAN FARMER. 35 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



From an Address before the Middlesex South Society, Sept. 18, 1856. 



BY LEVERETT SALTONSTALL. 



I may well congratulate you, farmers, and as a warm admirer 

 of your profession, loving the country and its pursuits, its rich 

 fields and fragrant forests, may express as briefly as possible a 

 few thoughts which have occurred to me, and which, if they are 

 not instructive, will perhaps interest you and tend to suggest 

 food for reflection. 



You are the owners as well as the occupier's of the soil you 

 cultivate. You are not burdened with tithes, your taxes are 

 light, and the product of your labors will command more of 

 the necessaries, comforts and innocent luxuries of life, than is 

 the case in any other country in the world. Could you pass 

 over the broad Atlantic, and, landing on the shores of old Eng- 

 land, observe with your own eyes the condition of the farmer 

 there, and thence proceeding through Franco, Italy, Germany, 

 and Spain, once realize the vast difference between your lot and 

 that of the farmer in either of those countries, you would fall 

 on your knees and pour forth thanks to the great Creator that 

 you were born a free American farmer. 



You will notice that I have mentioned only those countries 

 which are ranked as the best and freest in Europe. In England 

 the laws of primogeniture, and the division of the people into 

 classes, have concentrated in the hands of the few the whole of 

 the land, so that only one in about four hundred and seventy is 

 a landholder, and seldom, if ever, does the land-owner cultivate 

 his own land. But toiling from dawn till dark on soil, not an 

 inch of which he can expect ever to own, doomed to labor for 

 life without hope of rest, as unable to rise beyond his caste, as 

 he would be to stand erect if buried beneath a mountain, happy 

 is the English laborer if he can save enough to put food, such 



