4 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



no more love for his kind than though he had been born of 

 brutes and suckled by she-wolves. On one side religion ends 

 in bigotry, and on the other liberality of opinion in Atheism. 

 Trades, callings, classes, war upon each other, and life is like 

 a great amphitheatre filled with savage beasts and warring men. 

 In body and mind and spirit the equilibrium of humanity is 

 lost, and we are like the waves in a tempest. 



The physical result is given in the annual vital returns of the 

 State. The average duration of life in Boston is twenty years, 

 and but for the influx from the country its streets would in a 

 few years be deserted, and its houses tenantless. In the coun- 

 try tiie average of life is more tlian twice as long. So, we 

 compare the classes and occupations. The life of the farmer is 

 more than sixty years, of shoemakers and ordinary mechanics 

 from forty to fifty years, and of printers, editors, operatives in 

 factories, from thirty to thirty-five years. And here, mark you 

 that physical inferiority is invariably and quickly followed by 

 mental inferiority. The mind is the measure of the man, it is 

 true ; but the body as well represents the character of tiie mind 

 as the tenement will the tenant who occupies ; hence we find 

 that in all powerful nations, physical culture has been the foun- 

 dation of education. The golden age of Greek history was 

 when the youth were trained to manly sports and exercises. 

 Philosophy, poetry, oratory, music and sculpture followed and 

 flourished with the games to which tlie youth were invited. 

 The Romans adopted tlie Greek system, and with the same 

 success. Physical health is the chief corner stone of mental 

 power and moral greatness, and that is the product of the farm 

 as much as arc sheep and oxen. Having considered the influ- 

 ence of agriculture upon physical man individually, let us look 

 a moment to its relations to man in society — to civilization and 

 to government. 



Man's progress in civilization has been and must be through 

 the ])aths of agriculture ; that conies first, as the foundation of 

 society. Manufactures, which are a modilication of the products 

 of the soil, and commerce which is a distril)ution or excliange 

 of them, must, in the necessity of the case, be secondary. 

 Land is the chief creative clement in society, and arts and 

 trades, navigation and science, will move in unison with agri- 



