NEW ENGLAND HOME-LIFE. 57 



as this, to speak to you of the rehition of agricultural aucl 

 mechanical pursuits to social life — to New England Home- 

 Life. 



If there is any subject that would seem to be worn thread- 

 bare, it is agriculture, so far as it can form the staple of an 

 address. But some subjects never become trite — are never 

 out of date, and cannot be too often repeated. And next to 

 the truths that feed and strengthen our higher nature, 

 are the truths that pertain to this physical life. All that 

 renders life more sure, more enjoyable, more perfect in all 

 its relations and changes, never loses its interest to the think- 

 ers of the race. The wonders of machinery, the fertility of 

 soils, the salubrity of climate, the beauty of landscapes, the 

 pleasures of honest industry, and the zest of rural sports, will 

 undoubtedly furnish themes for thought until the fashion of 

 this world shall pass away. 



Whatever may be said of the wonders of mechanics, agri- 

 culture is the basis of all civilization. And civilization is the 

 condition of the highest rational enjoyment. Perhaps it would 

 be more proper to say that agriculture and civilization must 

 go hand in hand, at least where laborers are free, and are able 

 to become the owners of the soil. 



It is agriculture alone that can support the dense popula- 

 tion which the highest civilization demands ; that can furnish 

 food for the busy throngs who control the machines that civ- 

 ilization has harnessed to the plunging water and the expand- 

 ing steam to quadruple the man-power of the world, till the 

 machinery of Englaud alone equals in its producing power the 

 unaided labor of all the inhabitants of the fflobe. 



Agriculture must furnish not only the bulk of food used by 

 civilized nations, but much of the raw materials to be used in 

 their manufactures. The millions of spindles and shuttles all 

 over the world are busy to-day in transforming the products 

 of agriculture into the varied fabrics which the comfort and 

 taste of civilized nations demand. But it is also to be said 

 that it is civilization alone that can so perfect agriculture as 

 to rest upon it. Civilization climbs by a staircase of its own 

 building. It lays one step and then mounts that as a basis 

 from which to build another. And the great physical basis 

 which it must first make sure of, and imbed in every step of 

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