AGRICULTURE AND THE HORSE. 355 



benefit of ourselves who are engaged in this great 

 work. As an instrument in the hands of Providence, 

 which ^maketh even the wrath of man to praise him,' I 

 accept the evil. But, for myself, I shall devote my best 

 faculties to the development of the sturdier and more 

 reliable branches of our business, — to those dumb 

 friends of ours who neither startle us by their eccentric 

 impulses, nor betray us by their innate follies, nor drag 

 us to destruction by their uncontrolled and uncontrolla- 

 ble ambition, fatal alike to friend and foe, but who nour- 

 ish us from the cradle to the grave, who are associated 

 with our most peaceful hours, who disturb not our 

 mental and moral repose, who neither flatter our vanity 

 nor inflate our desires, whose massive and imposing 

 usefulness will always be remembered by the hungry 

 and the thirsty, whose simple and insensible stolidity 

 will be valued above more glittering qualities, and 

 whose immortal torpor will endure 



' When victors' wreaths and monarchs' gems 

 Shall blend in common dust.' 



"Mr. Chairman, I am but a common farmer. It is 

 true, a portion of my time is devoted to the public 

 service, to the advantage of the State, I trust, as well 

 as of myself But I am a farmer, believing in the 

 good old ways of the fathers, whose exhausted farms 

 we of this generation inherit. I believe in that mode 

 of farming, as I do in that mode of railroading, which 

 will give the largest returns with the least labor, the 



