160 TALENT AND THE PRESIDENCY. 



which has already given tv/o Presidents to the Union — 

 is certain for ever to exclude him from that high position. 

 But it is one of the benefits and boasts of a large federal 

 republic, that a wider field exists from which to select 

 great men to manage great affairs, and that it opens a 

 wider field of ambition to the noble minds which may 

 spring up in every part of the Union. Even in republics, 

 however, the most excellent theory cannot be made to 

 coexist with perfectibility in practice; and the alleged 

 wider field for great talents becomes null, if the great 

 offices are to be equally divided among the several States 

 as their turn comes round. 



13th Sept. — This morning I visited the show-yard, 

 along with my friend Professor Norton of Yale College, 

 who had thus far accompanied me in my tour through 

 his native country. The show was held in a large 

 inclosed area, quite as spacious as those usually devoted 

 to this purpose by the Poyal Agricultural Society of 

 England. The two main divisions of implements and 

 stock occupied the chief place, as with us ; farm and 

 dairy produce, however, and fruits, receive much atten- 

 tion from the New York State Society, and had an 

 appropriate place assigned to them under the tents and 

 sheds which were scattered over the grounds. 



The general cliaracter of the implements was economy 

 in construction and in price, and the exhibition was large 

 and interesting. I know of no more instructive lesson, 

 in regard to the practical condition of the husbandry of 

 a country, than that which a man gets in surveying a 

 collection of implements — actually in use, or coming 

 into use — such as these exhibitions supply. Our English 

 chaff'-cutters and food-crushers, and drill and thrashing 

 and tile machines, and cultivators and subsoil-ploughs 

 and clod-crushers, tell more of what is going on in the 

 country than months of travelling would make known to 

 the most active agricultural inquirer. It is not so much 



