M. P. WILDER'S ADDRESS. 411 



health and happiness, the welfare of the Commonwealth and / 

 country, require it. Who can estimate its importance to the ' 

 nation ? I repeat it, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and 

 the arts, are all coordinates, — separate links in one vast chain. 



Strange, indeed, that agriculture, which occupies, directly or 

 indirectly, more than three-fifths of the population of the Uni- 

 ted States, — an art in which capital is so safe, and labor so pro- 

 ductive ; the parent of all other arts, and the source whence 

 we derive our daily bread, — has received no more encourage- 

 ment from science, from invention and discovery, from men of 

 letters and of benevolence. 



If funds are wanted for internal improvements, for public or 

 private charity, for the endowment of institutions of learning 

 or religion, the call is at once responded to, by the liberal citi- 

 zens of Massachusetts, in a manner worthy of themselves, of 

 their origin and destiny. 



But present to them the claims of agriculture, they admit its 

 utility, and profess an earnest desire for its welfare ; yea, they 

 expatiate most eloquently on its importance and moral influence, 

 and assign it a place second to no other calling ; yet when you 

 invite them to contribute the " needful " for its improvement, 

 they find excuses more plenty than gold dust on the banks of 

 the Sacramento. 



Why has it hitherto been so difficult, — nay, ijjipossible, — to 

 get a bill through our Legislature, granting ten thousand, or 

 even five thousand dollars, in aid of an agricultural school, when 

 much larger appropriations are annually made, for the support of 

 objects, not half, no, not a tenth part so important to the Com- 

 monwealth ? But we rejoice that the day is at hand, when 

 such disregard of her true interest, and of the primary pursuit 

 of man, will no longer exist in Massachusetts, of world-wide 

 renown for the wisdom of her policy, in the encouragement of 

 domestic industry. 



Her sense of justice and of personal honor forbids it, and 

 loudly demands the improvement for which we plead. What ! 

 shall the old Bay State, first in the march for liberty, first in 

 legislation, first in internal improvements, first in whatsoever is 

 lovely and of good report, be overmatched, and her glory 



