RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO MAN. 15 



Bible that mother gave them — wrapped up in a cotton liand- 

 kerchicf. 



Tims from tlie farms, and most of tlicm from poverty, have 

 come lip your AVebster, Cass, Clioatc, Douglas, Benton, Calhoun, 

 Silas Wright and Henry Clay — the men who gave dignity 

 to the Senate chamber, and exhibited grace and eloquence, 

 and learning before courts and peoples. Thus from the farms 

 have come the philosophers, and poets and scholars, who have left 

 names to live ; thus the warriors who have fought our battles 

 and written history in blood ; thus, the merchants who have 

 built cities, covered rivers and lakes with steamers, and sent 

 their ships to every sea ; thus, in fine, the men who have given 

 character and tone to the nation. 



The farmers are necessarily the tliinking and studying men, 

 for their business involves and demands a greater variety of 

 knowledge, scientific and practical, than any other occupation 

 in which man can engage. Many of the sciences were born 

 on the farm, actually called into existence by the necessity of 

 the husbandman, and their origin was coeval with the first 

 turning of the sod. Astronomy and meteorology, the most 

 ancient and the most useful of sciences, were studied by the 

 shepherds and farmers before Abraham fed his flocks on the 

 plains of Mamre ; before Lot, separating from his kinsman, 

 pitched his tent towards Jordan ; before Joseph was sold into 

 Egypt, or Moses led the fugitive slaves, 3,000,000 strong, 

 through the Red Sea. They were the study of the Chaldeans, 

 Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese — all agricultural peoples from 

 the remotest antiquity. 



A knowledge of the times and seasons, of the rise and fall 

 of the rivers, of the ebb and flow of the tides, of the early and 

 latter rains, of the cycle of the periodical storms, of the forma- 

 tion of the earth and heavens, of the influence of various winds, 

 of the foretelling of the weather by signs in the skies, of the 

 snows, the frosts and the dews — these were all subjects of the 

 closest observation as having an intimate bearing on the labors 

 of the husbandman. The researches of those early nations 

 were carried to an extent that would astonish such as imagine 

 that wisdom is altogether modern. 



The science of mechanics was first called into existence as 

 the handmaid of agriculture. The first wheel and axle was 



