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relations with men of all other pursuits. All men are really 

 interested in the prosperity of all other men in every legitimate 

 employment. But it is not always easy to see it. As to the 

 farmer it can generally be discovered. The workman of every 

 craft, the manufacturer, the merchant, the clerk, has reason to 

 be glad when this great labor of production prospers. It is 

 true that the farmer may make some apparent or exceptional 

 gain in years of scarcity by the liigher prices he gets. But 

 years of scarcity are not, on the whole, best for the farmer. 

 His direct business is to bring into existence, of what man 

 needs from the soil, the largest amount at the least cost. As 

 he succeeds in this all others are profited.' This is so far 

 generally understood that men look favorably upon him in his 

 calling, and recognize him as a common friend and helper. It 

 is worth something for a man who values the highest things to 

 be planted so in his business where he may be regarded as 

 being, and may be, the friend and ally of all his fellow-men. 



The farmer is thus permitted, in a peculiar manner, and 

 required, to hold fraternal relations with the men of every 

 other branch of industry. He is in the midst of them and 

 before them all. He may be no narrow or clannish man, 

 confining his interests and sympathies to those of his own or 

 any other single occupation. He must hold out a hand to all. 



This ease of affiliation between the farmer and the men of 

 other employments is always to be noticed in our Agricultural 

 Fairs, which are mechanical exhibitions almost as much, and 

 to some extent commercial. And it has occurred to me also 

 that our own county offers a peculiarly happy illustration of 

 this fact in the prosperous establishment of its numerous and 

 varied industries within what were at first, for the most part, 

 agricultural communities. This multifariousness of pursuit 

 within our county is indeed most remarkable, with the variety 

 which it involves in modes of life, and the compass it gives to 

 society among us. It may be believed that the like breadth 

 and scope is not to be found upon the same extent of territory 

 anywhere else in our State or in the country. 



