AMERICAN AGRICULTURISTS. 259 



feeling, self-respect and self-protection, imitating only that meekest of them all 

 wiiich stands quietly to be sheared ? See, in England, at tiie sound of a sin- 

 gle voice, how the//ce traders met, again and again — subscribed their thousands 

 and their tens of thousands ; how they sent in memorial after memorial, and agi- 

 tated and agitated, until they carried their point, and rewarded their great advo- 

 cate with a donation of $360,000 ! Here, in our country, we have schools prop- 

 erly provided for the Army and the Navy ; Observatories to survey the heavens; 

 Light-houses to guide the mariner; and Telegraphs to convey hiformation, even 

 quicker than light itself, between speculators and merchants embodied in cities, 

 giving them ilie first warning, from one end of the Continent to the other, of all 

 changes in the value of agricultural products ; all this under control of the Gov- 

 ernment, and avowedly to collect and diffuse information to and among other 

 classes, whose employment and subsistence is derived from ihe fruits of agricul- 

 tural labor and the products of the earth ; and can nothing be done by this people^s 

 Government to enlighten and prosper those who toil at the plow? 



Is this our boasted Government of the people, powerful in all else, and power- 

 less only when the people call for a share of the common treasure ? 



But what said Hercules to the wagoner imploring his assistance? If men wish 

 to be helped, they must first learn to help themselves. Farmers, you have the 

 power of numbers, the power of productive labor, the claim of much the crreatest 

 contribution to the national means ; you have all sorts of power and all sorts of 

 title to superior influence in the Government on your side, eicept the power of 

 knowledge and of enterprise ; and there you are beaten by every class of society ! 

 Look at your relative numbers. Persons engaged in learned professions, 65,255 ; 

 in internal navigation, 33,076 ; in navigating the ocean, 56,021 ; in manufactures, 

 791,749 ; in commerce, 117,607 ; in Agriculture, 3,719,951. 



Then look again at the value of the annual products of your industry, consti- 

 tuting the solid wealth of the nation, inasmuch as it affords subsistence to the 

 whole population of the country, and the means of increasing its population and 

 power ; and as it furnishes the subject and elements of employment and subsist- 

 ence to every other class. Look, we repeat, at its annual value — $654,387,579 ! 

 being more than the value of the annual products from manufactures, commerce, 

 mining, forests and fisheries, all united. And yet, would you believe it ? until a 

 comparatively recent date, neither the National nor State Legislatures have paid 

 to you the compliment of even appointing Committees on a concern thus trans- 

 cending in itself /Ae aggregates of all others ! Nay, it is even doubtful whether 

 some of the Slate Legislatures go through that formality even to the present day. 

 They and the National Legislature have working Committees on Elections, on 

 Commerce, on Manufactures, on Finance, on Grievances and Courts of Justice — 

 on everything that wears any appearance or pretension of a public interest — but 

 where do you find the Reports of Committees in exposition of the wants, griev- 

 ances, condition and claims of Agriculture ? — of its comparative contributions 

 and its right to a distributive share of the public treasure so freely parceled out 

 for other classes and objects ? True, Committees on Agriculture have sometimes 

 been appomted of late years, but, hearing nothing from their constituents, they 

 naturally conclude that all idea on their part, if they ever had any, of any claim 

 on the attention of the Government, has become an " obsolete idea ;" and so, 

 when called on for their Reports, the return of the Agricultural Committee is — 

 non est inventus — no such interests to be found ! Let this memorial, then, give 

 tnem something to do — for agam it may be asked, Who ever were helped — who 



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