SELECTIONS FEOM ADDRESSES 



TO 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES 



The Relation of Land to the Prosperity and Happiness of 



THE United States. 



[Extract from an Address, by Hon. Caleb Cdshing, at the last Fair of the 



Essex Agricultural Society.] 



It is impossible that any American should call to mind the 

 history of his country, and look abroad on its present condition, 

 without feeling a sentiment of exultation in the remembrance 

 of the one, and of pride in the contemplation of the other. 



It may be, that something of exaggeration enters into the 

 sentiment, it may be that the frequent expression of it has a 

 sound of boastfulness to the foreign ear ; yet, as Mr. Everett 

 truly and well observes, the feeling and the manifestation of it 

 have been most natural to us of this generation, who saw emi- 

 nent men of the revolutionary struggle still lingering among us 

 after the nation had already grown into surpassing greatness, 

 thus prolonging our heroic age even into the present time. 



This feeling is the more natural, inasmuch as we ourselves 

 are the witnesses of a visible, yet marvelous national growth ; 

 of populous cities, filled with monuments of art, which have 

 sprung up as it were by enchantment from the bare face of the 

 wilderness, with the suddenness, but without the transientness, 

 of one of the vast oriental encampments ; of great states, with 

 their thronging millions of inhabitants, appearing in wide lands, 



