540 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES, 



conducted in places of compact population, where men, living 

 in close connection, act powerfully on each other's sympathies, 

 and those principles of imitation and emulation, which hold 

 such sway in the human breast, and impart such great energy 

 to intellect and character. These observations have a close ap- 

 plication to trading and mercantile pursuits. They are neces- 

 sarily carried on to a great extent in large and crowded places, 

 where human passions communicate themselves with great 

 rapidity ; where enterprise, and skill, and talent are awakened 

 into vigor by contact, and stimulated by the keenest competi- 

 tion of selfishness. The trading establishments in small vil- 

 lages and rural districts, bring their superintendents into con- 

 stant communication with men of all varieties of disposition 

 and intelligence, from places more or less remote ; where sub- 

 jects are discussed, ideas are exchanged, information communi- 

 cated, and the mind is kept in a state of excitement and 

 activity. 



The political affairs of the nation are discussed in these 

 places of village resort, with more good sense than they are 

 sometimes treated in higher places, and the business which it 

 has taken a whole session of Congress to discuss, and another 

 to decide, is there completed in one evening's debate, quite as 

 well in some cases, if not so authoratively, as in the spot where 

 the supreme power of the nation resides. 



But the operations of husbandry require an open space, are 

 conducted in a more sparsely settled region, without the limits 

 of those centres of congregation, and human contact and com- 

 petition, and those influences which quicken ideas and rouse 

 the energies to action. 



2. A good deal of talent and energy are withdrawn from 

 agricultural employment into other business, which holds out 

 inducement of quicker and larger profit. The difference which 

 exists between agricultural and mercantile occupations, is gen- 

 erally conceded to be this, that while the former holds out 

 prospects of steady, safe, but slow and moderate returns, the 

 latter invite by the chances of sudden and splendid fortunes^ 

 united with a very large proportion of entire failures. Now it 

 would be the dictate of true wisdom to prefer generally the 



