34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



comforts of life. For the accomplishment of this, labor must 

 be well paid, and the necessaries of life, provisions, clothing, 

 fuel, must be obtained at moderate prices. It is just this state 

 of things that exists, and constitutes the distinguishing feature 

 of modern society, especially in this country. We pay the 

 laborer well, and he feeds himself well. And that this may be 

 done without impoverishment, we must enable the laborer to 

 accomplish all that is possible during his hours of work. That 

 equality of citizenship which makes us a free people, requires 

 this elevated condition of labor, without which we should be 

 free no longer. In order, therefore, to maintain our social and 

 civil organization, we must furnish the producing classes with 

 the most economical mode of working and living. It is in 

 obedience not only to the general diffusion *of knowledge, but to 

 the commands of our free institutions, as well as to our enter- 

 prise and thrift, that we are devoted to improvements in 

 agriculture. Perhaps we shall never cultivate the soil better 

 than did the Egyptians, or Saracens, or Romans, or than now 

 do the Chinese, but we must do it with less demand upon 

 human time and strength, unless we would adopt that serfdom 

 and despotism which doom the laborer to a life of penury and 

 pain, and which requires no labor-saving machinery. Have 

 you ever seen a mowing machine from Russia, or a steam 

 plough from China ? The ploughs in Lombardy are no better 

 than they were in the days of Hesiod and Virgil. They tread 

 out their wine and weave by hand there now, as they did 

 centuries ago. Their condition as a people demands nothing 

 better. It is really not until you arrive at your own shores, 

 that you see the true genius of mechanical invention applied 

 to the business of life. Our inventors arc our benefactors. 

 And I know no more remarkable illustration of the understand- 

 ing and appreciation of national wants, which may occupy the 

 mind of a great man, than the assiduity with which Jefferson, 

 the founder of our free government, the prophet of the people, 

 the friend of labor, the patron of popular education, devoted 

 himself to the construction of the plough, according to the best 

 rules of mechanics, representing not only American statesman- 

 ship, but the spirit of American agriculture. 



It especially becomes us, therefore, as a people to encourage 

 in every way agricultural education. We cannot farm well 



