FOB PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 85 



speaker upon such topics, where on the one hand the 

 rough necessities of the farmer require plainness and par- 

 ticularity, and where on the other the over-scrupulous- 

 ness of the imagination requires that important subjects 

 of agriculture should be generalized and intimated, rather 

 than uttered, I shall deem myself sufficiently fortunate if 

 it shall be my lot to escape without failing in fidelity to 

 the interest of the country, and yet without violating the 

 dainty ear of city sensibility. Our purpose, then, this day 

 is to seek what is true and what is useful in relation to 

 the interests of our agriculture.. 



In executing this purpose I shall address myself chiefly 

 to that great body of our countrymen who are emphati- 

 cally called, farmers ; by which I mean the great body of 

 Massachusetts yeomanry, men who stand upon the soil 

 and are identified with it ; for there rest their own hopes 

 and there the hopes of their children. Men who have for 

 most part great farms and small pecuniary resources ; who 

 are esteemed more for their land than for their money ; 

 more for their good sense than for their land, and more 

 for their virtue than for either. Men who are the chief 

 strength, support and column of our political society, and 

 who stand to the other orders of the state in the same re- 

 lation which the shaft bears to the pillar ; in respect of 

 whom all other arts, trades and professions are but orna- 

 mental work, the cornice, the frieze and the Corinthian 

 capital. 



I am thus distinct in declaring my sentiment concern- 

 ing the importance and value of this class of men from no 

 purpose of temporary excitement or of personal concilia- 

 tion, but because I think it just, and their due, and 

 because, being about to hint concerning errors and 

 defects in our agriculture, I am anxious that such a 

 course of remark should not be attributed to any want of 

 honor or respect for the farming interest. Whatever 

 tends to stimulate and direct the industry of our farmers, 

 whatever spreads prosperity over our fields, whatever 

 carries happiness to the home and content to the bosoms 

 of our yeomanry, tends more than everything else to lay 

 the foundations of our republic deep and strong, and to 

 give the assurance of perpetuity to our liberties. 



The errors and deficiencies of our practical agriculture 

 may be referred in a general survey with sufficient accu- 

 racy to two sources, the want of scope of view among our 



