a F. ADAMS'S ADDRESS. 429 



as the one in which farming continues to be the leading pur- 

 suit. You may tell me as much as you please of the gold of 

 California ; the people of that country will be poor and wretch- 

 ed, so long as they are compelled to depend upon others for 

 every thing they want to eat and drink, for every thing but 

 gold. The earnings of every kind of artificial labor will fluctu- 

 ate with the rise and fall of the great ocean of trade, but man, 

 whether he does or does not sell what he produces, must be fed, 

 or else he dies. How great an advantage then in difficult times 

 does he enjoy who can at least subsist without recourse to the 

 will of another, the purchaser of his wares, and consume in its 

 primitive shape, without asking leave of any one, the labor of 

 his own hands. 



I am ready to admit that at first blush, the limited profits of 

 agricultural life do not look tempting. I know that, in Massa- 

 chusetts, every farmer sufl"ers from competition with the fertile 

 prairies of the west, a competition from the effects of which, it 

 should be remarked, that no one expects or even thinks of so- 

 liciting any other kind of protection than that which his own 

 wits and his hard labor afford him. Yet I maintain that, in ordi- 

 nary cases, and if he does not aspire to too much, these resources 

 will avail to protect his independence, provided that he will 

 concentrate his attention upon the way of making the most of 

 them. A man who farms it a little and does other things a great 

 deal, will not make a living upon his farming ; and the reason 

 is, not that he may not farm it well, but that his mind will not 

 be exclusively directed to learning the way to farm it better. 

 To success in any line of life, a man's heart as well as his head 

 must be in his business. To the fact that this is but rarely the 

 case among the cultivators of land with us, is it owing that we 

 have been comparatively stationary in farming, for I do not at- 

 tach so much consequence to the injurious effect of competi- 

 tion as many others do. Let us do the very best we can, and 

 we shall not produce a supply increasing as rapidly as the de- 

 mand. To the farmer of Norfolk county it is a great advan- 

 tage, which has been so lately gained that he yet perhaps has 

 scarcely learnt to make use of it, that he commands an almost 

 instantaneous market ; that he can sell, as well as produce his 



