FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 97 



school of his earliest days. He still hears from his window 

 the voice of the Sabbath bell, which called his fathers, and 

 his forefathers, to the house of God ; and, near at hand, is 

 the spot where he laid his parents down to rest, and where, 

 he trusts, when his hour is come, he shall be dutifully laid 

 by his children. These are the feelings of the owner of the 

 soil. Words cannot paint them; gold cannot buy them; 

 they flow out of the deepest fountains of the heart; they are 

 the life-spring of a fresh, healthy, generous, national char- 

 acter. The history and experience of the world illustrate 

 their power. Who ever heard of an enlightened race of 

 serfs, slaves or vassals ? How can we wonder at the forms 

 of government which prevail in Europe, with such a system 

 of monopoly in the land as there exists ? Nothing but this 

 explains our own history, clears up the mystery of the rev- 

 olution, and makes us fully comprehend the secret of our 

 own strength. Austria or France must fall, when Vienna 

 or Paris is seized by a powerful army. But what was the 

 loss of Boston or New York in the revolutionary war to the 

 people of New England ? The moment the enemy set his 

 foot in the country he was like a hunter going to the thicket 

 to rob the tigress of her young. The officers and soldiers 

 of the revolution were farmers and the sons of farmers, who 

 owned the soil for which they fought ; and many of them, 

 like the veteran Putnam, literally left their ploughs in the 

 furrow to hasten to the field of battle. 



After depicting the felicity, social and political, of the 

 agricultural population of New England, the orator closed 

 with the now familiar lines of the poet : 



What constitutes a state ? 



The publication of the society's Journal as a serial ceased 

 in 1827. The occasion of it was that other publications 

 had appeared in newspaper form, containing the latest in- 

 formation, with competent discussion, upon agricultural 

 matters. The principal of these, at that time, was the New 

 England Farmer, which was started in the year 1822. In 

 1823 the trustees of the society bestowed upon it, by a for- 

 mal vote, a cordial recommendation to the patronage of 

 the public, tt was issued weekly and reached its farmer 

 subscribers more promptly than could the society, with its 



