146 Extracts from the Journals. [July, 



aborigines of New England. His dress, too, if dress he cou d 

 obtain, must be the undressed hide of some animal; and his wife 

 and daughter must exchange their silks, muslins, and calicoes, for 

 the filthy skin of the horse, the raccoon, the bear, or the buffalo; 

 festooned it may be, as the ne plus ultra of savage skill, with the 

 quills of the porcupine, the feathers of the eagle, or bark painted 

 with elderberries. In his habitation, too, the nicely sanded or 

 carpeted floor must give place to the lap of mother earth, where 

 vermin, lizards and serpents, would dispute M'ith him the right of 

 possession. An unglazed hole in the wall must let in the storm 

 and the wind, as well as the light; the stagnant pool must be the 

 mirror before which he must make his toilet; and his glass, pot- 

 tery and porcelain, must give place to a wooden trencher or bowl, 

 wrought out by a flint. Let the farmer be thus stripped for a few 

 months, of all the necessaries, comforts and luxuries which come 

 to him through the arts, manufactures and commerce — let him, 

 like Nebuchadnezzer, be compelled " to eat grass as oxen, and 

 his body be wet with the dew of heaven, and his hairs are grown 

 like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws" — and he 

 would cease to say of his present state of comfort and happiness, 

 " is not this great Babylon, which I have built, by the might of 

 my power, and for the honor of my majesty." He would be 

 ready to acknowledge his dependence, if not on God, yet on com- 

 merce and the arts. 



If it were necessary to illustrate this dependence still further, I 

 might mention the character and amount of the imports into this 

 country, in the same year for which I have mentioned the ex- 

 ports, viz., 1845. All the imports for that year amounted to 

 about a hundred and fifty millions of dollars, of which only seven- 

 teen millions, or one-eighth, were agricultural products. All the 

 rest were manufactured articles; and a large proportion of these 

 were doubtless consumed by the agricultural part of the commu- 

 nity, not as mere luxuries, but as comforts, and even seemingly 

 necessaries. At least, so they would appear, were the communi- 

 ty to be deprived of them. For our necessities usually multiply 

 in about the same ratio as our luxuries. The artificial wants 

 created by the latter soon become as clamorous as those which 

 are natural. 



But why should I dwell on this subject? for every agricultural 

 fair presents us with a practical illustration of the intimate con- 

 nection and dependence between agrfculture and the arts. The 

 choicest and richest displays of mechanical skill meet and gratify 

 us there; and many of them, too, have been prepared in the far- 

 mers' families, in the intervals of leisure; so that, in fact, to at- 

 tempt to depreciate manufacturers would be to depreciate farmers 

 themselves. 



