92 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the ablest and wisest men in all ages. The pleasures of the 

 husbandman have been the theme of poets and orators in every 

 language and in every land. These pleasures, Cicero tells us, 

 are not checked by any old age, and make the nearest approach 

 to the life of a wise man. And he tells us that Homer intro- 

 duces Laertes, soothing the regret which he felt for his son, by 

 tilling the land and manuring it. 



Marcus Curius, after he had triumphed over the Samnites, 

 over the Sabines, over Pyrrhus, spent the closing period of his 

 existence in agricultural pursuits. 



Cincinnatus was at the plough when it was announced to him 

 that he was made Dictator. 



" God Almighty," says Lord Bacon, " first planted a garden ; 

 and indeed it is the purest of pleasures ; it is the greatest re- 

 freshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and 

 palaces are but gross handiworks." 



Addison says a garden was the habitation of our first parents 

 before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with calm- 

 ness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at 

 rest. 



The philosopher Bolingbroke was never so happy, Pope tells 

 us, as when among the hay-makers on his farm. 



And not alone in the refinements of rural life will there be 

 an interest. Farmers hold the world together. There may be 

 years when they seem to be of less consequence. Trade or 

 manufactures may allure some of them for a time. But there 

 will ever be latent in every man's breast a hope to end his days 

 on a farm. Then we need not fear but that there will always 

 be farmers in Norfolk County. Every diminution of its terri- 

 tory by which some of its oldest and most glorious farms are 

 consigned to the city to be covered with dwellings, will but 

 make those which remain to be more affectionately regarded. 

 And in a county like this, whose territory is growing smaller 

 every year, the farmers can in many ways subserve their best 

 good by a union for the support of this society. How other- 

 wise shall be controverted what I have so often heard said in 

 other States of the Union, that the old farms of New England, 

 more particularly of Massachusetts, are passing out of the 

 ownership of the descendants of the families who first cleared 

 the fields and fenced them, and planted the orchards, and 



