240 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



stood by the naturalist ; but where the schoolroom which teaches 

 your children the hidden mysteries of the kingdom of nature, in 

 which you have the greatest interest? I give all credit to our 

 state for its agricultural and scientific surveys, and for setting 

 an example to other states of the Union for more than an imita- 

 tion in these particulars. The results are laudable, and praise- 

 worthy to those who produced them; but it is nothing more 

 than the beginning of something which is needed. Why should 

 not the most remarkable occupation of life have its just repre- 

 sentation in the studies of men? And what reason why your 

 sons and daughters, besides what you can teach them, should 

 not become proficients in those more intellectual studies, in which 

 they must find advantage, when connected with their usual 

 avocations? 



It cannot be too strongly urged on the community to encour- 

 age a more active interest in the labors of the field. Far better 

 would it be for many of our young men to see what they could 

 accomplish in this department of industry, than to enter into so 

 many futile speculations, or adopt so many other methods of 

 acquiring a competence, for which they are but ill adapted. 

 The fond hopes of many a parent's heart would never have been 

 blasted, had his feeble and puny son been apprenticed to the 

 plough, rather than suffered to prematurely die within the close 

 and stifling walls of the college. What benefits might not our 

 rich men confer, by spending their days of ease and of freedom 

 from the cares of life, among the picturesque hills and green 

 fields, instead of immuring themselves in the city to breathe its 

 pestilential atmosphere ? Wealth can command what toil can- 

 not procure ; and the few and prominent examples of such mil- 

 lionaires as may be found amid their sylvan retreats, exhibit in 

 what degree nature can be made to contribute to the luxuries 

 and refinements of life. So intimately connected is every part 

 of society, that benefit must accrue, wherever expenditure is 

 made ; and doubtless the actual condition of the agricultural 

 portions of England is far better, from the general taste of its 

 nobi'ity for agricultural pursuits, than it would be were its rich 

 men to congregate in its cities, and to draw around them there 

 all the elegancies and refinements of social life. It needs but 



