FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 101 



ear, without danger of offence to that fastidiousness 

 of fancy, which is miscalled refinement. 



Amid the perils which thus surround every public 

 speaker upon such topics, where on the one hand the 

 rough necessities of the farmer require plainness and 

 particularity, and where on the other the over-scrupu- 

 lousness of the imagination requires that important 

 subjects of agriculture should be generalized and in- 

 timated, rather than uttered, I shall deem myself suffi- 

 ciently 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 agri- 

 culture. 



In executing this purpose I shall address myself 

 chiefly to that great body of our countrymen who are 

 emphatically 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 chil- 

 dren. 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, sup- 

 port and column of our political society, and who 

 stand to the other orders of the state in the same rela- 

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

 whom all other arts, trades and professions are but 

 ornamental work, the cornice, the frieze and the 

 Corinthian capital. 



I am thus distinct in declaring my sentiment con- 

 cerning the importance and value of this class of men 

 from no purpose of temporary excitement or of per- 

 sonal conciliation, 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 



