No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 171 



LJUe Commonwealth, therefore, you see 1 am not mistaken when i 

 speak of your opportunities for diversified agriculture. You have 

 these opportunities here, and I am glad to see that the farmers of 

 Chester county know how to improve them. Why the fact that your 

 lands have been under cultivation for over two hundred years and 

 are richer to-day than they were a century ago, proves to us all 

 that the farmers of Chester county understand their business, and 

 so we are glad to be with you and accept this welcome from such a 

 class of people as we find here. 



Moreover, Mr. Chairman, we are not unmindful of the fact that 

 we are here upon historic ground. You will remember that when 

 in the youth of Moses, the Lord appeared to him at Mount Horeb. 

 he was told to put off his shoes from off his feet, for the place upon 

 which he stood was holy ground, and it is with a feeling somewhat 

 akin to this which must have been experienced by the old Hebrew 

 lawgiver that we come into your midst on this historic ground. We 

 remember that the soil upon which we stand when we are in Chestei 

 county was baptized with the blood of our fathers in their momentous 

 struggle for Independence. We remember that here some of the 

 most important battles of the war that resulted in American Inde- 

 pendence took place. We are perhaps not much more than half a 

 dozen miles from the field of the Battle of Brandywine, where, on 

 the 11th of September, if my memory fails me not, 1777, Genera! 

 Washington with the patriots that followed him, fought; and then 

 just a little way on the north side of us is Paoli, the place where 

 that memorable massacre occurred, only a few days after the battle 

 of Brandywine. And then if we go just a little further off in a 

 northeasterly direction, we come to Valley Forge, where perhaps the 

 greatest amount of suffering and sacrifice was endured by our Kevo- 

 lutionary fathers, that was experienced through the eight years that 

 the struggle for Independence drew its bloody length along, and 

 so we are glad to be here because we feel that we are standing upon 

 historic ground. 



Some one has said that the plains of Moab speak to us across 

 the ages, and so my friends it is with Brandywine and Paoli and 

 Valley Forge. They are an inspiration to the lovers of liberty in every 

 age and we are glad to be here. We are glad to be here where our 

 fathers fought for Independence. But there are other reasons, if I 

 had time to enumerate them, why we should be glad to be here and 

 why we should appreciate this welcome. Chester county is not only 

 a great agricultural county, is not only a great historic county, but 

 it is a county that iu the past has been great in its production of 

 men. I think it was Wendell Phillips who, when he was visited 

 once by some of his friends who lived some distance away from him, 

 had his attention called to the fact that thev luid in his communitv. 



