COMPARATIVE VALUE OF AGRICULTURE. 215 



rewards ; that it ought to be respected for its highly 

 salutary influence upon our repubHcan institutions, and 

 upon the good order of society ; and, finally, that it 

 ought to be honored at least according to its intrinsic 

 merits, that it may be more followed by men who 

 have minds as well as hands to accelerate its improve- 

 ment. 



We mean no disrespect, by these remarks, to the 

 merchant or the manufacturer. We are not in the 

 way of believing that by attempting to raise one class 

 we sink the other classes. Manufactures and com- 

 merce are the hands and legs, while agriculture is the 

 body. They are reciprocally useful to each other. 

 The body may sustain life without the limbs, but the 

 limbs will perish without the aliment which they de- 

 rive from the body. But we believe the other classes 

 have numerous and efficient advocates, v/ho are able to 

 take care, and who do take care, of their interests ; and 

 that agriculture demeans herself, and compromits the 

 best interests of the state by her modest, passive, de- 

 grading acquiescence in total neglect. We wish to 

 raise the agriculturists of our country to the condition 

 which belongs to them, to that of intelligent, prosper- 

 ous, high-principled men, who know their rights and 

 their duties, and will fearlessly assert the one and faith- 

 fully perform the other. Then will our agriculture be 

 made to double and treble its products, to compete with 

 the agriculture of other countries, and to supply all 

 our wants ; then will party interest be made- to bend 

 to the public good, and riot and outrage be made to 

 give place to law and good order ; then shall we truly 

 become an independent nation, rich in all the elements 

 of human happiness. Even if we fail in all these 

 fond anticipations, we can lose nothing by making 

 the effort. We must be gainers in a less or greater 

 degree. 



