66 AIASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE FARMER AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 



From an Address before the Worcester South Society. 



BY S. P. TWISS, OF WORCESTER. 



The just and natural relation wliich exists between the 

 farmer and the Commonwealih, is a subject wliich commands 

 the serious consideration and reflection of every good citizen. 

 It is essential to the manifold interests of the government, to 

 the welfare of the farmer, and the prosperity of the community 

 in which all or any of the industrial, useful arts and vocations 

 of life are prosecuted, that its agricultural pursuits should be 

 properly appreciated, protected and encouraged by the govern- 

 ment, for it is from tiie products of the earth that man, what- 

 ever his condition — be he king upon the highest summit of 

 human fame, or peasant in the most humble walks of life — 

 derives his support and sustenance. Although the importance 

 of agriculture to the body politic, and its support of the insti- 

 tutions of government and society is sometimes not quickly 

 nor easily seen by the careless and superficial observer, yet to 

 the thinking, intelligent man of observation and experience, 

 its obvious import is not easily overestimated. 



The agricultural, commercial and manufacturing interests of 

 our country are intimately and inseparably interwoven ; and 

 so great is the dependence of the latler interests upon the 

 former, that a well-founded prospect of a short crop of grass 

 and grain, or potato rot, or a fear that the earth will refuse 

 any of its annual crops, disturbs and agitates the whole mer- 

 cantile community, the chambers of commerce of our richest 

 and most opulent cities, as well as the most humble laborer, 

 who in depressed and anxious care with his family around his 

 hearthstone, eat their frugal meal earned in the sweat of his 

 brow. All men, all classes of men, all kinds of business, all 



