OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 75 



class of scientific practical agriculturists,, who will be prepared 

 first to be successful in a moderately bad climate and a compar- 

 atively sterile soil like that of New England, and eventually to 

 stem back the tide of slovenly cultivation threatening to over- 

 whelm us in the West, and raise our country to its normal posi- 

 tion of the leading agricultural country in the world. 



The mottoes of our country are emphatically, Peace and La- 

 bor. We desire to be at peace with all, and to provide the means 

 of support by honest labor to all. We claim that labor, whether 

 of the head or hands is alike honorable, and that more true glory 

 is won by increasing the fertility of the earth, by the invention 

 of implements which lessen the toil of the hand workers, than 

 by creating new engines of war, or even using them successfully 

 against our fellow-men. Sir William Jones in an eloquent pan- 

 egyric, nearly a century ago, said, " He who makes two spears of 

 grass grow where but one grew before, is a public benefactor far 

 in advance of the noblest chieftains, who aided by armies and 

 the enginery of war, sack cities, carry conquest onward only to 

 conquer, subjugate and desolate kingdoms." If that sentiment 

 was true of the art of agriculture in its infancy, how much 

 greater will be the glory of those, who, aided by the experience 

 of the past, educated by the schools of the present and future, 

 shall not only make two, but dozens of spears of grass grow where 

 but one grew before, shall restore by scientific effort the fertility of 

 the ravished soil of the virgin West, and double and treble the 

 products of the exhaustless farms of the older sections of the 

 country. Of these efforts it may well be said : — 



" The plough aucl the sickle shall shiue bright in glory, 

 When the sword and the sceptre shall crumble to rust, 



And the farmer shall live both in song and in story, 

 When warriors and kings are forgotten in dust." 



