18 ADDRESS TO THE FAKMEKS OF TEXAS. 



If Texas were expending four times as much as she is, per annum, 

 in the purchase of home-made wares and fabrics, she would buy far 

 moi"e from abroad than she now does. If she had a dozen ax-factories 

 in full operation, she might import fewer axes than now, but her im- 

 ports of Steel, Iron, and a hundred other articles, would be swelled 

 beyond computation. 



I hold the natviralization of new and the extension of existing 

 Manufactures among the most urgent wants of this State, as of 

 nearly every young community. Hence, I hold — not that you 

 ought to pay a high price for a poor article becaiise it is home-made 

 — not that you shovild forego the gratification of a legitimate want 

 because the ai'ticle it contemplates is not of Texas growth or fabri- 

 cation — but that each of yovi should give an intelligent preference, 

 other things being equal, to whatever is made on your own soil — 

 should buy your harness, or saddle, or pail, or broom, or plow, or 

 ax, of your neighbor's make, in preference to one brought from 

 abroad ; should take and pay for some first-rate Texas journal 

 before looking abroad for a better. Having thus done your duty 

 by the community whereof you are a part, if you are able and will- 

 ing to take a second journal, I might possibly aid you in finding a 

 good one. 



Is Agriculture a repulsive pursuit ? That what has been called 

 Farming has repelled many of the youth of our day, I perceive ; 

 and I glory in the fact. An American boy, who has received a 

 fair common-school education and has an active, inquiring mind, 

 does not willingly consent merely to drive oxen and hold plow for- 

 ever. He will do these with alacrity, if they come in his way ; he 

 will not accept them as the be-all and the end-all of his career. He 

 will not sit down in a rude, slovenly, naked home, devoid of flow- 

 ers, and trees, and books, and periodicals, and intelligent, inspiring, 

 refining conversation, and there plod through a life of drudgery as 

 hopeless and cheerless as any mule's. He has needs, and hopes, 

 and aspirations, which this life does not and ought not to satisfy. 

 This might have served his progenitor in the Ninth Century ; but 

 this is the Nineteenth, and the young American knows it. He 

 needs to feel the intellectual life of the age flowing freely into and 

 through him — needs to feel that, though the City and the Railroad 

 are out of sight, the latter is daily bringing within his reach all 

 that is noblest and best in the achievements and attractions of the 

 former. He may not listen to Sumner or Thurman in the Senate ; 



