660 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



the mind with the useful and agreeable, as to leave little room 

 for complaint or discontent. 



Each and all of these haA^e a daily and hourly influence on 

 your happiness and prosperity; without this knowledge in 

 some degree, civilization must decline, and man degenerate to 

 barbarism. Your beautiful cities, the pleasant homes of your 

 villages, and your fair fields, teeming with the products of your 

 industry and skill, would soon sink to ruin and waste, and be- 

 come the abode of wild weeds and wilder beasts. 



The time is coming when the successful farmer will be the 

 intelligent farmer, as well as the successful merchant he who 

 understands the principles of trade. 



When Lord Bacon said that " knowledge is power," he did 

 not mean that it is power alone in the laiv, in writing books, 

 speculation, or surgery, but that it is power over the earth to 

 subdue it to our will ; over the trees, and the grass of the fields, 

 to make them bring forth abundantly to satisfy our wants and 

 gratify our tastes; power to introduce new fruits and flowers; 

 power over the animal kingdom, to improve the races for speed, 

 for milk, for draft, or the shambles ; and power over the cli- 

 mate, even, so that tropical plants shall flourish and ripen their 

 fruits ia these regions! 



The possession of these powers will verify the axiom of 

 Lord Bacon. And while they cause " the desert to blossom 

 as the rose," they will elevate your own characters, and bring 

 that grateful contentment and satisfaction with your occupa- 

 tion, to which it has been my object in these remarks to lead 

 you ; a contentment and quiet current of life, not often real- 

 ized by professional men. Then — 



" Would you be strong ? Go follow the plougti ? 

 Would you be thoughtful ? Study fields and flowers ; 

 Would you be wise ? Take on yourself a vow 

 To go to school in nature's sunny bowers. 



Fly from the city ; nothing there can'charm — 

 Seek wisdom, strength, and virtue on a farm." 



Intelligent labor will gladden the heart of the wife, strength- 

 en that of the husband, and make home attractive to the child ; 

 will introduce ease and refinement into domestic life, and 

 through these, lift the soul to Heaven to reap the reward of 

 faithful service while on earth, in new fields of glory, where 

 moth and rust will not corrupt. 



