OUR COCNTRY OUR WHOLE COUNTRY. 223 



the nation, of a highly-improved stale of agriculture? 

 Is there one who does not see that his personal in- 

 terests are promoted by this certain and constant 

 influx of wealth, drawn from the soil, prolific in the 

 bounties and blessings of a wise and beneficent Cre- 

 ator ? HE has spread everywhere the means of 

 making man wise and happy. HE has given him 

 the capacity to apply these means to his own good. 

 HE has commanded him to bring his capacities 

 into constant and active exercise ; and HE has 

 promised to reward, and HE will reward, all who 

 prove faithful to the command. 



I do not aim to disparage the other great branches 

 of national industry, which are bountiful sources of 

 wealth and happiness, by praising agriculture ; but I 

 think the importance of this great business to the 

 state has not been duly appreciated, nor its interests 

 sufficiently regarded and promoted by those who 

 have had the management of our state affairs. My 

 object is merely to make agriculture the base, as it 

 ought to be, of the social edifice. We are so prone 

 to look up for blessings to what are termed the high- 

 er walks of life, and to expect them to fall upon us 

 without an effort, that it becomes necessary, at 

 times, to point to their legitimate sources below, in 

 the soil. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce 

 are all important, in a public point of view, in the 

 order in which we have named them ; and, like the 

 human body and its members, are reciprocal aids to 

 each other. The agriculturist gathers from the soil 

 the elements of usefulness ; the manufacturer fits 

 them to our wants ; and the merchant becomes the 

 factor of both, and the medium of interchange 



It is but just, in the mean time, to suggest some 

 of the important bearings which our manufactures 

 have upon the prosperity and independence of our 

 country. These consume the surplus products of 

 the soil ; they convert into useful fabrics the wool, 

 the hemp, the flax, and much of the cotton, of the 



