1857.J The Moral Injluences of Agriculture. 29 



be indeed stupid and hard hearted, if he is not made better by this 

 daily necessity of recognizing his dependence upon a higher power. 

 But besides this, what life can be so calculated to fill the mind with 

 gratitude and love to the Supreme Being as that which brings one 

 daily into contact with His works. What is there of God in the 

 shop, the bank, the office, the factory? But the fields, the forests, 

 the streams, the hills and vallies, these, the home of the farmer, are 

 all vocal with Grod's praise. The opening flower, the waving grain, 

 the luscious fruit, * the harvest home,' the music of birds, the bleat- 

 ing of flocks, the storm and the sunshine, all speak to him of his 

 Maker, and teach him to adore and reverence and love. 



4. But we need not theorize on the subject. We have facts enough 

 on record to sustain our position. Very few of the sturdy, hard- 

 working yeomanry of the land, will be found among the tenants of 

 our jails and prisons. The cities and large towns furnish the occu- 

 pants of these. The schools of vice at which the miserable beings 

 have graduated, who are here shut up for safe keeping, are the grog- 

 shops, the gambling-houses, the theaters of the city ; not the quiet 

 fireside of the industrious farmer. 



The world never saw a more moral people than those, who, for two 

 hundred years have digged and ploughed the rugged hills of New 

 England. As they have gone forth thence over the richer lands of 

 the West, they have borne with them everywhere their schools and 

 their churches. They have been everywhere the firm defenders of 

 good laws and good order and good institutions. They, and others, 

 who, like them have been trained in the school of Agriculture, in 

 this and in other lands, constitute the bone and muscle of the com- 

 munity. They are not the * fillibusters,' nor the 'border ruffians,' 

 but the quiet, orderly and reliable defenders of all that is good and 

 right. The cities may become corrupt, the strong holds of every 

 vice; but the staid, sober, thoughtful, intelligent yeomanry will 

 prove, as they always have done, the conservators of all our cher- 

 ished institutions and our most ardent hopes. 



With such views, we regard with intense interest all that is done 

 to educate the farming population. They are in our esteem the 

 hope of our country. Let virtue and intelligence characterize the 

 farmers of the land, and the country is safe. 



