60 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



learn how weak, how utterly contemptible, is that clique, who 

 affect to despise honest toil, the better. God has placed you as 

 coworkers next to himself. It is yours to beautify his own 

 creation, to utilize his works, to convert deformity into loveli- 

 ness, and barrenness into fertility, to " make the desert blossom 

 and the hungry to be satisfied." From that exalted position, 

 so long as you fulfil its obligations manfully, you may look 

 down on Beacon Street and the Fifth Avenue, on uppertendom 

 generally, and the codfish aristocracy particularly, only be dis- 

 criminate, for there are likely people even there ; but do not 

 look up to any one, with other feelings than those due to 

 intrinsic worth. With ten acres, or a hundred, or a thousand 

 — a little farm or a great one — well tilled, you can well afford 

 to be generous in your estimation of all, but you need envy 

 none. I charge you, in all earnestness, maintain a high 

 opinion of your calling, and be satisfied with the position it 

 gives. 



My second suggestion is, that you strive to assume the high 

 position which your calling is adapted to give. You choose 

 your religious teachers, you give them your ears every Sabbath, 

 and then you despise them, if they do not make themselves 

 worthy to be in the pulpit. You commit your legal business 

 to men in the legal profession, but you have no patience or 

 respect for them, if through ignorance or inattention your 

 interests suffer in their hands. You intrust life and health to 

 your physician, but it is solely on the ground that he knows his 

 duty and will do it faithfully. So you employ teachers for your 

 children, but you will not have a particle of respect for them, 

 furtlier than you see them earnestly devoted to their business, 

 every day making themselves worthy of the confidence you 

 repose in them. 



Now it is true that the farmer is not charged with the spir- 

 itual or legal, the sanitary or educational interests of the com- 

 munity ; his business is more exclusively his own business; a 

 sort of quiet, independent business, one with which others have 

 less occasion to be meddling. Nevertheless, his doings do not 

 all terminate in himself. I pass along your roads. I see ten 

 farms in succession, where the houses arc neat, and all around 

 tliem is productive and in good taste, the acres well fenced and 

 teeming with crops, the stock select and in high condition, the 



