224 [Assembly 



of what has been done, the present age demands of us. Of what 

 avail is it that our bags are filled with gold, that our warehouses bend 

 beneath the pressure of their goods ; that our ships connect us with 

 the world, pouring our treasures upon foreign soils, and returning 

 richer treasures for our consumption ? The aggregate wealth of the 

 nation is enlarged, and individual possessions rival the opulence of 

 royally. But what is the condition of the people — of the hundreds of 

 thousands who create — the grower of. grain, the operative mechanic, 

 the workman in the factory, the apprentice ? This question should be 

 kept in mind until the answer shall not imply a duty unperformed. 

 Before any effective step can be taken in their behalf, that prejudice 

 must be encountered and removed, that the work of the hand is more 

 productive than that of the mind. . The thinking man appreciates at 

 once the surpassing productiveness of mental labor. He that stands 

 behind the plough does well ; and so did he do well, whose mind con- 

 trived the plough with which the soil is turned. Let not the hand say 

 to the head " what doest thou ?" nor the head to the hand " what 

 doest thou ?" For God has given to every man both hand and head. 

 But these considerations may mote properly be pressed in another 

 connection. 



I was stating the dependence, one upon the other, of those branch- 

 es of our industry for whose protection your noble Institute was 

 founded, with a view of showing, that as their interests were joint and 

 their action upon us united, so they demand of us the performance of 

 certain duties which concern them all. We are, as a nation, and must 

 be if true to ourselves, emphatically an agricultural people. With 

 the exception of some portion of the northern states, where granite 

 crops are raised, and ice is grown for exportation, and of some sec- 

 lions of ihe Atlantic coast, there cannot be found a land where Provi- 

 dence points more emphatically to the sickle and the plough. There 

 were in the United States, during the last year, no less than seven 

 hundred and twenty-nine millions of bushels of grain raised upon our 

 farms ; and of these, nearly seventy-five millions have been raised in 

 this state. This amount has been ascertained, and falls short, un- 

 doubtedly, of the whole crop. Beside these, the tabular estimates 

 which have been published slate that 17,715,000 tons of hay have 

 been cut; ihat of tobacco, 166,705,000 pounds have been raised; 

 that 872,107,000 pounds of cotton have been grown ; and 1 11, 759,000 

 pounds of rice; and 201,107,000 pounds of sugar; and last, and 

 least in quantity — though our fair friends will think first in quality and 



