58 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



bayonets of grim-visaged war. Not more certainly do they 

 serve her cause who bravely contest on the field of strife, than 

 do those who labor to feed the million of men in arms, and the 

 many millions of non-producing dependants they have left 

 behind. The farmers of the north are as truly the soldiers of 

 the Union as are they who are trained, and brigaded, and 

 set for battle. To them great duties are confided, duties not 

 second to those of the squadrons in the field. Let them not 

 undervalue their position in this time of trial. They serve the 

 glorious cause honorably and well, at home, when they sow, 

 and toil, and gather in their harvests. As Milton has said, with 

 that serene philosophy which animates every line of his lofty 

 verse — 



" They also serve who only stand and wait." 



Nor can we fail to compare, in this struggle between the 

 interests of honorable labor, on the one hand, and labor dishon- 

 orable and servile, on the other. What an immense agency for 

 good, in its comparative force, is the free, intelligent farming 

 population of the north, as opposed to the menial, trembling, 

 oppressed, unwilling laborer at the south. The cause of free 

 labor is the cause of civilization and humanity. Every man 

 who cultivates the soil is a faithful laborer in the cause of the 

 Republic ; is serving the highest purposes which intelligent and 

 earnest manhood can ever pursue. 



With what a ready and responsive hand do all the great 

 movements of nature wait upon these. Her forces, apparent and 

 hidden, are all working to the same sublime result ; they are the 

 untiring champions of the right and the true. While all is 

 upheaved in storm in this country of ours, and all we value is 

 trembling in the balance, no instrumentality of nature is latent 

 or lust. Trampled beneath the hostile hoofs of contending 

 squadrons, the earth may hold its bated breath, and for a time 

 refuse to put on its garments of verdure and of bloom. But 

 her energies and her beauties only sleep and wait; they arc not 

 overcome or destroyed. Sj)ring time will come again, when the 

 " winter of our discontent" has over-past, and new grass shall 

 clothe the hills and new violets spot the meadows. 



