11 



But we must inquire, for the moment, what is the material out- 

 Come of all this digging among the rocks, and working farms 'midst 

 these storms and zero weather ! What is the result of the battle? 

 Why, Massachusetts produces more corn to the acre than any State 

 in the Union, and she has captured her mountain torrents and made 

 us twirl millions of spindles, and her fabrics would enrobe the world. 

 Main lumber has brought its millions of dollars. Massachuseets 

 and Vermont have found more than placiers of gold in their granites 

 and marbles. The Green Mountain Boys, of whom I claim to be 

 one, lead the market in magnificent horses, and sell their sheep, 

 grown among their rocks for $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) a head. 

 This is what comes of the grit that is harder than the flint of our 

 mountains ; of a pluck mightier than the frost of our winters ; of a 

 cunning that turns hostile forces into channels of wide spreading 

 thrift. Thus the sturdy farmers who grappled these forces, have 

 produced the muscle and the mind that even now dominate the ma- 

 terial interest of the land. The South has worn out more farms than 

 would cover the area of New England, and the West is going through 

 the same process. Yet they, the South, producing its millions of 

 bales of cotton, and the West its millions on millions of grain, still 

 cannot move their crops to the markets without coming to the East 

 for the money wherewith to do it. And this is not singular or ex- 

 ceptional. The nation of farmers has ever whipped the world. 



The histories of the Greeks and Koreans give us a striking illus- 

 tration. In the Greek literature, which has had such a wide influ- 

 ence upon the world, there is but little reference to the farm or agri- 

 culture. One reason may be that when they invaded and conquered 

 the country now known as classic Greece, they reduced the aborigi- 

 nal inhabitants to slavery, and made them the cultivators of the soil. 

 Hence they were led to look contemptuously on farm life, and the 

 farm enters not into their poetry, or literature in general. 



It was quite different with the Romans. They were, in the first 

 periods of their history, farmers. Agriculture was held in high esti- 

 mation. Whilst among the Greeks, the names of their illustrious 

 families were borrowed from the heroes and gods of their mythology, 

 the most famous houses among the Ancient Romans take their names 

 from their favorite crops and vegetables. Thus it is quite natural 

 for the farm to appear in their poetry and general literature. The 

 gentle and the cultivated Virgil has given to the world and to suc- 

 ceeding generations the poem of the farm in his Georgies. Thug 

 many other Latin poets have celebrated the farm. So in general 



