58 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



believe he can. If tliere is the shadow of a reason, it must be, 

 that the same blessing is given to all other farmers, and so is 

 veiy common, and like other common blessings, is despised. 



Other callings are essential to the well-being of society. 

 They are essential to the farming interest even. You could 

 not turn over the soil, unless somebody made your plough. 

 You could not sell your produce, unless many were so busy 

 in other employments as not to be able to grow their own. 

 You are about as dependent on the manufacturer, the mechanic 

 and the educator, as they arc upon you. It is only when each 

 fulfils his part, that all prosper. You feed all the other profes- 

 sions, and clothe them, so far as the raw" material is considered, 

 but you do not do tbis for naught. They are your customers. 

 They pay you ; and if they could not get along without you, 

 neither could you prosper without them. 



But you, who delve in the soil, who decree what this acre 

 shall produce and what those, who lay your plans for future 

 years and the elements obey you, have a nobler dominion over 

 nature than any other, and at least as benign a mission towards 

 your fellow men as the best. You have no occasion to be seek- 

 ing a higher employment. There is none higher. None but 

 rogues and fools pretend or tliiuk there is. Your calling is in 

 high esteem with God and with all honest and sensible men ; 

 and having deliberately chosen it, let me say to you, strive not 

 to be better than farmers^ but to be better farmers. 



How to be better farmers, is the subject of what I have to say ; 

 and if any think my discourse directed too much to one useful 

 and honored class, and not enough to another class of workers, 

 the mechanics, to whom Massachusetts and New England owe 

 their prosperity, in no small degree, it is not because I love 

 Caesar loss, but Rome more. There is another reason ; a wise 

 farmer puts each of his acres to the production of what it is 

 best adapted to produce. You should do the same with your 

 speakers. I might not -be able to instruct the manufacturers 

 of Worcester West. If I should undertake, I might show 

 myself behind the times. They probably know foo nuich for 

 me. I certainly could not tickle the ears of any outsiders 

 from cither calling, wlio would prefer poetry to blunt prose, 

 and who might think hogs and horses, and fertilizers, and crops, 



