8 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



may not question ; the town has rights that the State may not 

 invade ; the State has rights that are beyond the reach of Con- 

 gress, and which the President cannot disregard without com- 

 mitting treason against the Commonwealth, as much as would 

 the State if it should deny the powers that have been ceded to 

 the general government in the constitution. 



All history furnishes illustrations of the truth of our position, 

 that an independent yeomanry is the basis of free institutions. 

 Whenever a people have succeeded in republican forms of 

 government, or in curtailing the sovereign power for any 

 length of time, whether among the vineyards and olive groves 

 of ancient Greece, the mountain homesteads of the Swiss 

 peasantry, or the broad acres of Columbia's virgin soil, or the 

 vast ranches of South America, the majority of the inhabitants 

 have been devoted to agriculture ; and it is equally true that the 

 cultivators of the soil have been the most prompt, the most 

 active, and most enduring in defending their rights and insti- 

 tutions, whether local or national. 



It would be an interesting topic, did the time permit, to show 

 the relations of agriculture to nations — to illustrate this fact: 

 that land and its cultivation are the life powers of nations, 

 which give strength, liberty, wealth and permanence. This is 

 true of the most ancient — it is true of the most modern. As 

 agriculture has been most advanced, civilization has most ad- 

 vanced, and flourishing and stable nationalities have been 

 established. Such is the evidence in the case of China, whose 

 husbandry has attained great perfection, as it must that a third 

 of the whole human race might be fed from its soil. Here is 

 an empire that has lived and flourished ever since the morning 

 of time. History runs not back to its beginnings; and to-day 

 it teems with life, abounds with wealth, and boasts of its philo- 

 sophy, literature and sciences. Tin-ough all the ages agriculture 

 has been most lionored by the Chinese. It has been recognized 

 by the sages, patronized by the statesmen, and praised by the 

 poets. Even the Emperor, claiming relationship to the gods, 

 every year comes down from his throne to mingle with the 

 people at their grand agricultural festival, and holds the plough 

 and turns the furrow with his own hands. The Hindoos pre- 

 sent another illustration. We find them a polished and refined 

 people, possessing a very j)erfect system of religion, with sages 



