LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 33 



wanders amid the monuments of grandeur and civilization of 

 the old world, still at last returns to the cultivation of the 

 lands, even the sands of Cape Cod. It seems the yearning de- 

 sire of the human heart to return to the bosom of mother earth. 

 Well may it be so ; for to the purifying and revivifying influ- 

 ence of the farm and the country, we owe most that is stable in 

 government, most that is patriotic in thought and loyal in en- 

 deavor. The battles for the Unioh in the late rebellion were 

 fought in a great degree by the farmer boys of the country. A 

 majority of those that went forth at the first call left the plough 

 in the furrow or dropped the shovel or spade in the garden. The 

 corruptions, the vices of cities have so far not reached the land ; 

 and to the country the statesman must look for stability and 

 safety and purity of the laws. There is a reason why this must 

 be so. In the country there is time for reflection, time for 

 thought. In the city, amid the whirl and turmoil of the clash- 

 ing pursuits of aggregated men, there is time only for the per- 

 ceptions. In the city, man lives guided by his eyes and his senses ; 

 in the country he lives in his reflections and ideas. The occu- 

 pation of tilling the farm, I need not say to you, gives health 

 and strength to the body as well as purity to the mind. Who- 

 ever, tilling the soil, is inclined to look with envy upon the suc- 

 cesses of his neighbor in the accumulation of wealth, let him 

 console himself with the remembrance that at last that neighbor 

 will yearn to return to the soil again to till it, and in it to find 

 his last resting-place. 



6* 



