50 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



he has less opportunity to indulge in dishonest dealing and play 

 the rogue than almost any other class of men. Besides, this 

 employment is rendered honorable from the fact that great and 

 good men in every age, from the days of the holy patriarchs 

 down to the present period, have chosen it for themselves. The 

 pursuit of agriculture stands associated with some of the noblest 

 names that ever graced the world. To mention that of tlie 

 immortal Washington is enough. It is eminently the employ- 

 ment to which those who retire from the most elevated stations 

 of professional life, have resorted to render quiet and serene 

 the evening of their days. Men who have commanded armies, 

 or who have occupied the bench of the highest court of the 

 nation, or have shone as brilliant lights in the senate chamber, 

 or who have even filled the presidential chair, have not felt 

 themselves as suffering any diminution of honor in resorting to 

 the cultivation of mother earth, no, not even if they had soiled 

 their hands or darkened their brow by going forth themselves 

 to hold the plough or drive the team. The Father of his 

 country had no less honor attached to him when cultivating his 

 Ijeautiful plantation at Mount Vernon, than when he stood at 

 the head of the American army, or when presiding in the first 

 American Congress. 



I have presented these views from the fact that many, and 

 especially among the young men of this proud and vaunting 

 age, affect to look down upon farming as a degrading employ- 

 ment, as beneath the notice of a high-minded man. They look 

 with scorn on the idea of digging in the earth for a living. 

 This is quite foreign to their notions of a gentleman, and 

 hence they must needs abandon the plough, the spade and the 

 axe, and put on their broadcloth, and steam up for a dandy, and 

 tlien fly away to the city, where they may find employment in 

 some inferior clerkship, or in superintending an oyster saloon, 

 or in serving the drunkard in some miserable dram-shop. Ah, 

 this is honorable indeed ! and especially when comjiared with 

 the vulgar business of driving the plough and tilling the 

 ground. Such drudgery is quite too intolerable for them. 



Along with the honorable nature of this employment, let us 

 look at some of its advantages. I might speak of the advan- 

 tages of labor in general. Work is man's appointed task. It 

 lies at the foundation of all progress, of all hope, of all good. 



