98 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jail., 



which, though it supplies to the world the greater part of the food 

 on which its life depends, and absorbs the thought and muscle of 

 the majority of men, has yet been regarded as menial, and almost 

 degrading. Men have turned away from it, in choosing their life- 

 work, with a feeling of commiseration for all those who could be 

 satisfied with such drudgery. But on the other hand where in 

 the wide range of human labor is the occupation which so stimu- 

 lates thought and investigation, drives men to study the relation 

 of cause to effect, and suggests so constantly the presence and 

 power of natural forces and laws, as that of agriculture ? It 

 arouses and sharpens all the mental and physical faculties, and 

 urnishes ample room for their highest development. It is also 

 imperious in its demands upon the hand and brain, and puts a 

 prce upon success which only the diligent, the devoted, and the 

 persevering can pay. It is a science, and to-day employs inuch of 

 the best thought of the world, and to all who seek to know its 

 laws, and to explore its hidden processes, it presents the broadest 

 fields, and discloses the profound est depths. It is, too, an art. 

 Genius and skill nowhere else find such opportunities for their full 

 employment as when they direct the culture of the soil. 



Every farmer in New England should be an enthusiast, for he 

 holds the right of sovereignty over a part of this solid earth, and 

 is commissioned to make it bud and bring forth fruit, not thirty 

 or sixty, but a hundred fold. He is a co-worker with nature in 

 her most charming and most wonderful I'ealm, and if he has ears 

 to hear may learn from her own lips the secrets of her economy. 

 Chemistry has already unlocked for him many of the mysterious 

 and hidden truths of a generation ago, and wins from this field 

 her grandest triumphs. And yet that within half a century there 

 has been a growing distaste for the cultivation of the soil, and a 

 steady depreciation in the quality of New England farm labor, 

 cannot be denied. 



There are some here to-day who remember the time, running 

 back from the opening of the war through a quarter of a century, 

 at least, when these hills and valleys were cultivated by those who 

 were to the manor born, and who thought it no dishonor to enter 

 the service of others for wages. Who left the family hive, reluct- 

 antly it may be; as fledglings are sometimes pushed from their 

 nests, when their service was no longer needed there, or would 

 command fair wages elsewhere; whose arms were strong and 



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