32 AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED 



the contrary, it is necessary, or exercise is necessary, to 

 the developement of the facuhies of the mind ; and where 

 study and labor are directed to the same object, as they 

 may be in agricuhure, they tend particularly to stimulate, 

 and to give pleasure and profit to each other. Many of 

 the most eminent and useful men, in the improvement of 

 society, have been such as have prosecuted their studies 

 while daily laboring in their professional business. Among 

 those, of our country, who have been distinguished for 

 public usefulness, we may name Franklin, Rittenhouse, 

 Fulton, Sherman, &c., who were all hard-working men, 

 and who greatly improved their minds, while they daily 

 labored with their hands. 



§3. Jls a JWeans of Individual Happiness. 



One of our good and great men has said^ — " If happi- 

 ness is to be found upon earth, it must certainly be sought 

 in the indulgence of those benign emotions which spring 

 from rural cares and rural labors." " As Cicero," he 

 continues, " sums up all human knowledge in the charac- 

 ter of a perfect orator, so we might, with much more 

 propriety, claim every virtue, and embrace every science, 

 where we draw that of an accomplished farmer. He is 

 the legislator of an extensive family ; and not only man, 

 but the brute creation is subject to his laws. He is the 

 magistrate, who expounds and carries these laws into 

 operation. He is the physician, who heals the wounds, 

 and cures the diseases, of his various patients. He is 

 the divine, who studies and enforces the precepts of 

 reason. And he is the grand almoner of the Creator, 

 who is continually dispensing his bounties not only to his 

 fellow-mortals, but to tlie fowls of the air, and to the 

 beasts of the field."* 



Though there are many w^ays and devices by which 

 men endeavor to obtain wealth and happiness, there is 

 perhaps no employment in which these are obtained with 

 so much certainty, — few w^iich apparently better fulfil the 



* Chancellor Livingston's Address before the Society of Agriculture 

 and the Arts. 



