ACxRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 423 



approaches a social condition in which the community is divided 

 into classes with opposing interests. It tends to lessen the 

 number of small farmers living on their own property, and 

 to multiply laborers who cannot hope to become land-owners. 

 Were it not for the unbounded territories of the West, such a 

 state of things might be perpetuated, and the time would come 

 when multitudes of dependent men would beg for the pivilege 

 of toil, — the poor privilege of keeping body and soul together. 

 Whatever tends permanently to lower the wages of labor is an 

 injury to the State. Whatever is lost to the wages of the laborer 

 is added to the wealth of the land-owner, without a correspond- 

 ing compensation for the unequal distribution of profits, in an 

 increase of social benefits. 



There is hardly another circumstance that adds so much to 

 the value of land and labor as a near and easily accessible 

 market, where the productions of the soil may be exchanged for 

 other necessaries of life. This market the farmers of Norfolk 

 county have in the capital, and in numerous manufacturing 

 and mechanics' villages. They have intelligence and enterprise 

 enough to avail themselves of its advantages. Tliere is scarcely 

 a limit to the demand for tlieir productions, while facilites for 

 reaching the consumer are unequalled. Let them abandon the 

 idea of fortune-making in the West, and adhere to the incom- 

 parable blessings of education, religion and social refinement at 

 home. Let them remember that for generations agriculture in 

 this country has supported tens of thousands of excellent 

 citizens, — supported them, I venture to say, in as high a state 

 of civilization as the tillers of the land ever reached on this 

 earth. With every year the inducements to cultivate the soil 

 are multiplied, — high prices, ready markets, increasing knowl- 

 edge, improved machinery, and the examples of successful 

 individuals. 



It may be said tliat the soil is hard and the struggle unceas- 

 ing. Does not history teacli us that agricultural prosperity is 

 usually proportioned to the difficulties to be overcome ? Is it 

 not so in every department of human activity ? Compelled to 

 honorable toil we gain things that more than compensate for 

 fertile fields and milder skies, — energy, enterprise, aptitude for 

 business, a habit of industry, and all the manly virtues that 



