374 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



These remarks are not true of every town, nor are they true 

 of all the farmers even in the most prosperous towns ; but I 

 make them as descriptive of the condition of the farmers of 

 Middlesex county. 



And you can sfee over the whole State evidences of agricul- 

 tural prosperity. Houses in good repair ; farms well culiivated 

 and cared for ; public institutions, such as schools and churches, 

 everywhere established, and honorably and usefully maintained. 

 There are besides, numerous and valuable public works and 

 public institutions, in which they are proprietors ; or to which 

 they have been contributors. In the banking institutions of 

 the State, they and their families are large proprietors ; in the 

 savings' institutions, they are known to be large depositors ; 

 and in the railways, unfortunately, you will say, perhaps, they 

 are large stockholders. 



If, then, upon a view of the whole field, and a fair compari- 

 son with other departments of industry, there is so much to 

 encourage the farmer, and so little of which he may complain, 

 why is it that many young men seek to spend life in other 

 ways ? The answers, no doubt, are numerous, but they are 

 principally to be traced to one source — -false education. The 

 life of the farmer is represented to the young mind as more 

 laborious and less honorable and profitable than that of the 

 merchant or the lawyer. Now this, I doubt not, is an error. 

 The farmer's life is a life of labor, but it is physical labor only. 

 How does it compare with that of the physician, who takes 

 upon himself the responsibility, too little thought of, I confess, 

 of aiding nature in her struggle to give health to the body? 

 Or how does this labor compare with that of the lawyer, who 

 is without cases and without fees, or with that of his more 

 successful brother, who is irritated, and goaded, and oppressed, 

 by the difficulties of his cause, the anxiety of his client, and 

 the danger of bad management in his hands? Or how does 

 the labor of the farmer compare with that of the merchant, 

 whose credit is at tiie mercy of the changes in the money 

 market, or who may be bankrupted by the failure of a man 

 over whose business he has no control, or ruined by the suc- 

 cess of one crop, or the destruction of another? Now, of 



