THE FARMER. 899 



natural difficulties and extending the facilities of travel and 

 trade. Consider the constant increa&e of population and wealth, 

 consider the unrivalled credit of your State in the great com- 

 mercial markets of the world. I venture also to suggest to you, 

 in relation to your own chosen employment of a Berkshire 

 farmer, your relative position and connection with youi- fellow 

 citizens in the great variety of their employments. That com- 

 paratively few are, or ever will be, very rich, and almost as few 

 very poor ; that in no part of our country are competence and 

 intelligence distributed more equally ; that if your fields are 

 less extensive and naturally less fertile than in the new States, 

 your markets are at your own door ; that your soil is not ex- 

 hausted of its power, but only temporarily of some of its quali- 

 ties, which, by practical investigation, witli the aid of progressive 

 science, you may supply ; that your mind will ever find a great 

 variety of interesting subjects of investigation in the processes 

 of mechanical art and manufacturing industry around you. 

 Consider the resources of your county of Berkshire ; its mines 

 of iron, better than mines of gold ; its inexhaustible building 

 material, the best in the whole country ; sought out by the 

 national science, and preferred as the material of the edifices by 

 which the nation illustrates its wealth and power. Consider 

 the manufacturing resources of your county, which have sprung 

 almost entirely from the enterprise and industry of your people, 

 without aid from foreign capital, and resting upon the surest 

 foundations. Consider your advantage's in pursuing the most 

 interesting branches of agriculture, the raising and improving 

 the domestic animals ; the real life, and interest, and romance 

 of agriculture. Do you still hesitate ? Tell me where you 

 must look for your companion in life. You might as well go 

 from the garden of the Hesperides for apples, as to go abroad 

 from Berkshire for the wife of your youth. And where, think 

 you, will her associations, her delights, her happiness, be found? 



And our young friend has yielded to the argument. There 

 is enough in it to satisfy his strong good sense, and he will 

 abide by the graves of his fathers. 



Something of debt he must encounter at the beginning, but 

 he fears it not. It will stimulate his industrious energies ; it 

 will give him the excitement of struggle, the joy of victory, 

 and the assurance of future accumulation. 



