RELATION OF AGRICULTURE TO THE STATE. 39 



no mail, however low his position, wears upon his neck the col- 

 lar of servitude. The barriers of society are thrown down, and 

 no position, however high, is beyond the reach of the ambitious 

 and deserving. 



In the language of Halleck applied to Connecticut, we may 

 say of our whole country, and especially of New England, 



" 'Tis a rough land of earth and stone and tree, 



Where breathes no castled lord or cabined slave, 



Where thoughts and tongues and hands are bold and free 

 And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave ; 



And where none kneel save when to Heaven they pray, 



None even then unless in their own way." 



There is no one class of men that have greater interest in the 

 maintenance of these beneficent institutions than the class which 

 we represent to-day — the farming population. Politicians and 

 soldiers may save the country, and in that hardly without our 

 help, but agriculture makes the country. 



The lamented Lincoln said to a gubernatorial aspirant for the 

 Presidency who was chary about furnishing his quota of troops 

 in the late rebellion, " If you want to be President you must 

 help to preserve a country to be president of." And if we de- 

 sire to perpetuate the blessings we enjoy down to the genera- 

 tions of our descendants, we must not only vote for the best 

 men for our public servants, but exert ourselves in our calling 

 to make it of worth in the state, to educate our children, improve 

 our farms, repress the growing extravagances of the day, and 

 become the preserving influence in the nation. As industrial 

 toilers we are apt to forget that we are component parts of a 

 great whole — that our labor, though primarily for our immediate 

 support, is really one of the props sustaining the whole fabric of 

 society. The term national prosperity is very commonly applied 

 merely to the resources of government, and although these are 

 derived from the common stock, it is difficult to convince the 

 laboring man that he who apparently shares none of national 

 wealth can be at all concerned in its amount. Every increase 

 of product, however slight, and although apparently only bene- 

 ficial to those who directly profit by it, is eventually advanta- 

 geous to the whole nation. The whole wealth of the world has 

 been acquired by labor. The conservative influence of agricul- 

 tural labor as well as its importance as the groundwork of ua- 



