FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 111 



their farms, their methods of cultivation, are all sub- 

 jects of inquiry, comparison and excitement. The 

 premiums proposed have given a spring to the enter- 

 prise of the cultivators, not on account of the trifling 

 pecuniary reward which is held out, but through the 

 influence of a generous spirit of emulation. The agri- 

 cultural magazines and newspapers take up the matter 

 in this stage and give all desirable notoriety to what 

 is done and doing. The knowledge of every improve- 

 ment is widely diffused. Increased prosperity begins 

 to show itself as the reward of increased skill and 

 knowledge, and thus the condition of the husbandman 

 is rendered more comfortable and more honorable. 



The orator then entered upon a historical survey of 

 the conditions of agriculture from the earliest times, 

 premising that with agriculture, civilization begins; 

 that where it does not exist, progress is not possible, 

 as is evinced in the condition of the Arabs and the 

 Tartars, who roam with their flocks and herds over a 

 vast region, destitute of all those refinements which 

 require for their growth a permanent residence, and 

 a community organized into the various professions, 

 arts and trades, and who are found, now, after the 

 lapse of 4000 years, in the same condition in which 

 they existed in the days of Abraham. The Greeks and 

 the Romans, he said, held agriculture in honor, espe- 

 cially the latter. The farmer was with them a 

 respected and independent citizen. Cincinnatus, who 

 was called by Livy "the hope of the Roman empire," 

 was found, when called upon to take the position of 

 supreme ruler, engaged in labor upon his farm of four 

 acres. At a later period great landholders who owned 

 slaves were numerous ; but the class which tilled their 

 own small farms did not disappear till the overthrow 

 of the empire by barbarous tribes. Under the sway of 



