ADDRESS. 



THE cultivation of the earth is the employment des- 

 tined to man by his Creator. It is the occupation of all 

 others best fitted to promote his heallh, by alternate rest 

 and labour ; to preserve his virtue, by withdrawing him 

 from the contagion of the more busy world : and to ad- 

 vance his civilization, by calling him away from the scenes 

 of violence incident to a roaming life, to the cultivation 

 of the soft arts of peace. Hence it has been cherished 

 by the most enlightened of all nations. It has been the 

 source of sustenance alike to the palace and the cot- 

 tage, to the king and the beggar. In reviewing the his- 

 tory of mankind, we find their advancement and decline 

 in public virtue have kept concurrent progress with this 

 art. From Babylon^ from Greece and from Judea, Agri- 

 culture was transferred with every thing that served to 

 embellish life, to Rome, v/hcre it was the theme of her 

 statesmen and her poets. With the decline Siudfall of 

 civilization in that vast empire, the vineyards and the 

 gardens that overspread her almost illimitable domains 

 were converted either into wastes for wild beasts, or into 

 fields of slaughter and of war. The burdens and exac- 

 tions of the lords of the soil upon the products of the ten- 

 ants, were the great evils of the feudal system. Industry 

 consequently was discouraged and extinguished. Agri- 

 culture and the arts expired ; and the melancholy train 

 was followed by the downfal of learning and civilization. 

 For centaries. the fields and the workshops of Europe 



