60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



I invite your attention first to the dignity of agriculture as 

 a pursuit. This is a fertile theme for declamation, and the 

 loudness of the assertions, Avith the readiness with which the 

 sons of farmers quit this honorable pursuit to engage in what 

 they profess to consider the inferior duties of the merchant, the 

 doctor or lawyer, show that there is a marked difference between 

 our preaching and practice — that there is need, year by year, 

 that the dignity of agriculture should be fully vindicated. We 

 find the first evidence of the dignity of agriculture in the fact that 

 it is God-appointed. There is no other 'secular business enjoined 

 upon man. Other employments are necessary, but only as 

 adjuncts to this. The cultivation of the earth was the appointed 

 work for man in the pure and holy state in which he was first 

 created. As Adam was the highest type of man, so his employ- 

 ment is that to which all men naturally turn in the highest state 

 of society. 



The inherent dignity of the occupation is seen also in the fact 

 that it is the only one that all men may engage in without any 

 feeling of humiliation. We should hardly think it congruous 

 for a king to leave his throne, or the president his chair of state, 

 and engage in the struggles and speculations of trade, or in any 

 of the learned professions, except in the sacred office of the 

 ministry. But the king and the president may both cultivate 

 the earth ; they may earn in the field their bread by the sweat 

 of the face, and no one thinks of its being out of place. The 

 high and noble, the learned and the brave, have, in the cultivar 

 tion of the earth a sure employment, which the whole world 

 regards as honorable. 



Another ground of its inherent dignity is the fact that it is 

 the foundation of all the other pursuits. The support of life, 

 food and raiment, are the first great necessities of the race. 

 These come from the earth. Our railroads thunder along with 

 their loaded trains, but the cars are filled with the products of 

 the earth. The canal is bearing on its fleet of deeply laden 

 boats, but it is the amber wheat and golden corn that so deeply 

 sink the keel. The ocean is shadowed by ten thousand sails 

 and ploughed by mighty steamers, but in all their rich freights, 

 how small a portion can bo found that is not a product of the 

 soil! The grain of the North, the cotton and rice of the South, 

 the fruits and spices of the islands, the tea of China, and the 



