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their own acres, would be no longer the stay and staff of 

 our republican institutions and our republican principles. 

 God grant that the day may never conrie, when this coun- 

 try shall be without an independent rural population, own- 

 ing no lord or master this side of Heaven ; maintaining, in 

 all their purity and freshness, those rural manners and rural 

 habits which are the very salt and saving grace of our 

 social and our political system. God grant that the day 

 may never come, when some American Goldsmith shall 

 paint our rural villages deserted, our rural virtues leaving 

 the land : — 



" E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 

 I see the rural virtues leave the land. 

 Contented toil, and hospitable care. 

 And kind, connubial tenderness, are there; 

 And piety with wishes placed above. 

 And steady loyalty, and faithful love." 



But the farmer ought to have something more than a 

 mere living price for his products. He ought to be able to 

 lay up something to send a son to college, or to set up a 

 daughter in house-keeping, or to support his wife and him- 

 self, and keep the wolf from the door, when sickness or 

 old age shall put a stop to their daily toil. The true pro- 

 tection of agriculture, and the true promotion of the wel- 

 fare of the individual farmer, are to be found, and can only 

 be found, in building up the manufacturing and mechanic 

 arts of our country, in creating a diversified industry, and 

 in establishing more proportionate relations between the 

 various departments of human labor. When this shall be 

 accomplished, there will be less need of Government inter- 

 vention for encouraging agricultural science and diffusing 

 agricultural information. It will then cease to be recorded 

 of our American agriculture, that " its two prominent fea- 

 tures are its productiveness of crops, and its destructiveness 

 of soil;" for it is the one of these features which leads 



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