424 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



flourish ill the farmer's home. We may have failed in Norfolk 

 county to raise the greatest crops of corn and grass, though I 

 think rarely ; but we have never failed to raise a crop of fair 

 women who adorn and bless our homes, and men who cherish 

 " constitutional freedom, and that passion for liberty, which are 

 the great and earliest glories of our English race. Poor as 

 our soil may be compared with others, ungenial as our climate 

 may be, it is precisely in consequence of these, that, under 

 Providence, our farms are tilled by free men ;" that the 

 products of labor are so widely distributed, maintaining so many 

 families in the enjoyment of almost unequalled blessings. 



To the young men of our county, who have been educated 

 by institutions that teach them to place the highest value upon 

 character, we commend agriculture for its moral tendencies as 

 the great conservative element of society. Amid the agitations 

 and excitements that occasionally sweep over the country the 

 farmers stick to the soil and increase its value by their labor, 

 giving it, in fact, by that labor, all the value it has. Their calm 

 pursuits moderate popular phrenzies, and fit them to fulfil the 

 highest duties to society. They may be slow, cautious, dis- 

 criminating, averse to sudden movements, perhaps too conser- 

 vative, too timid in adopting ideas and plans, the importance 

 of which others clearly discern ; but they are the men to be 

 relied on for substantial efforts, for the performance of their 

 social obligations. You know where to find them. They are 

 necessarily tied to their homes, which are for them realities 

 around which their affections cluster. Others may lead the 

 movements of the age as light skirmishers ; but the heavy 

 masses that are to secure the ultimate victory will be found 

 among the cultivators of the soil. Men who pay taxes, main- 

 tain schools and churches and impress their character perma- 

 nently upon the country, can never be unfaithful to the great 

 interests of social life. In their retired homes, with leisure 

 for the agricultural newspaper or the scientific treatise, 

 surrounded by the fruits of honest labor amid the grand or 

 lovely scenes of nature, the ever-freshly uttered words of God, 

 they may enjoy as large a share of earthly happiness as falls 

 to the lot of mortals. 



