62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



clothing for our armies, we were not compelled to become 

 suppliants to any foreign power. 



Another reason for the dignity of agriculture is that it gives 

 an Independent business to each man. The merchant is 

 dependent upon others for customers, the mechanic for employ- 

 ment, and in the great mass of manufacturing establishments, 

 large bodies of men are trained to one special kind of labor, 

 all under the direction of some master mind. They know 

 nothing of controlling a distinct business. They simply do 

 their appointed work, and where the division of labor is carried 

 to a great extent, the range of labor is very restricted. One 

 man may spend his life drilling the eyes of needles, another 

 polishing combs. In the great steel pen manufactory of Gillott, 

 in Birmingham, England, the work of manufacturing is divided . 

 into twenty-four parts. There stand hundreds of men and 

 women, working year in and year out, on the twenty-fourth 

 part of a steel pen. Probably not one of the number could 

 make the whole of a steel pen. 



Tlie varied duties of a farm are in strong contrast to this. 

 Farming is a whole business, — it requires thought and fore- 

 thought, — it requires constant observation and experiment. 

 The duties of every day call for varied thought and action. No 

 man in this world can be Entirely independent of his fellow-men, 

 and the wants of civilized life make men more dependent upon 

 each other. But of all men, the farmer is most independent. 

 •He can live on his own products. He is his own master — ^liis 

 business is distinct. He conducts it not as subordinate, but as 

 principal. Success or failure are his and not his employers. 

 This is of prime importance to the true dignity of man. And 

 these are among the grand elements of the dignity of agricul- 

 ture — its independent life, and its making every man his own 

 master and the controller of a distinct business. 



Notwithstanding all these sources of dignity, it is painfully 

 apparent that farming docs not hold the high rank with us that 

 it ought to hold, and by no means the comparative rank that it 

 held with the ancients. "While We praise farming, we find our 

 farmers trying to make traders and doctors and lawyers of their 

 sons. If they send their sons to college, they seldom think of 

 taking them back upon the farm. In fact, a young man who 

 should have the good sense to go from college to the farm, 



