severing ignorance of the true principles of his art, although scorning 

 in the pride of his own fancied superiority, the more timid efforts of 

 his thoughtful neighbor, delves on through life, a wre tched and un- 

 successful farmer, and in time leaves the world no better, so far as 

 his own labors were concerned, than he found it ; and is finally bu- 

 ried beneath a soil over which he plodded for three score years, and 

 never knew a single part of its composition ! 



This, though perhaps an extreme, and certainly not a flattering 

 picture, is still a type of agricultural life, in its way, existing in every 

 one of our United States. In what profession throughout the length 

 and breadth of our land is there so little progress nay, such deter- 

 mined opposition to progress, as in the ranks of agriculture 1 I would 

 not assert that numerous eminent examples of improvement have not 

 existed among those of purely agricultural occupation. But they are 

 rare as compared with men of other pursuits when applied with all 

 their research and intelligence to agriculture alone. 



And it may well be inquired, why is this so ? Agriculture occu- 

 pies four-fifths of the laboring population of the land. From the 

 agricultural ranks have sprung many of the most illustrious names 

 whose services have adorned and honored their country. From its 

 ranks, too, have perhaps a majority of the most successful among 

 those engaged in the various other pursuits and occupations of life 

 arisen. In short, there can be no class of our population which af- 

 fords so sure a basis on which to rely for an infusion into all other 

 pursuits to the durable prosperity of a State as the agricultural. Such 

 is the gratifying truth ; and it is to the health-giving influences of 

 the soil itself ; the free wild air of heaven that he breathes ; cheer- 

 ful exercise and occupation ; contentment ; and the full, unrestrained 

 enjoyment of man's first estate bestowed by God himself, that thus 

 constitutes in him who tills the soil, the full development of his fa- 

 culties in all the admirable proportions of body and of mind that his 



