MILTON P. BRAMAN'S ADDRESS. 543 



than in ours. The people seem to have the same convictions 

 respecting their own properties that Moloch expressed of his 

 compeers in Pandenionium, that " in their proper motion as* 

 cend." 



Every man feels that he is equal to every other, and that 

 nature has provided for him some high position which it is the 

 great mission of his life to find, and that no American has 

 found his right place, as long as there is another individual 

 above him. Agriculture pays the penalty of this universal and 

 boundless competition. A great amount of ingenuity, activity 

 and enterprise, which ought to bestow their benefits upon the 

 soil, are forced into other channels of industry which promise 

 higher rewards to the impatient aspirations of the American 

 mind. 



3. Another reason for the slow progress of agriculture, in 

 this country particularly, is the immense quantity of unculti^ 

 vated and fertile lands which have held out constant invitation 

 to emigrants from the older settlements. The stimulants to a 

 more inventive and vigorous agriculture are withdrawn. It is 

 found easier for a person who has a taste for the labors of the 

 field, to go a thousand miles and reap an almost spontaneous 

 harvest from soils that have been growing richer since creation, 

 than to turn the stone of the New England hills into bread. 

 And then as larger proportions of waste land have been brought 

 into culture, and the facilities of transportation have been mul- 

 tiplied, and a greater quantity of surplus products has been 

 thrown into our markets to compete with those of domestic 

 culture, every year has laid a still heavier tax on the ingenuity 

 and exertions of the agriculturists in the older regions to ex- 

 tract an adequate return from mould of stubborn and ungrate- 

 ful qualities. This demand in other circumstances would have 

 operated favorably; it would have called forth correspondent 

 effort ; it would have developed resources equal to the crisis ; 

 and though no more sunbeams might have been obtained to 

 warm the earth, than the sun is pleased to dispense, they might 

 have been put to more economical and efficient use in perfect- 

 ing the process of vegetation. 



But to those having the migratory propensities so strongly 



