14 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURE-TENURE OF LANDS. 



From an Address before the Middlesex Agricultural Society. 



BY EMOIIY WASIIBURX. 



I mean to speak of the influence of agriculture as an employ- 

 ment iipon a community, and how far this is affected by the 

 nature and extent of the ownership of the soil in individual 

 proprietorships. 



Of tiie classes into which communities are, ordinarily, 

 divided, the owners of the lands are, uniformly, the most fixed 

 in their condition, and stable in their opinions. While, from 

 long continued habits of association, men thus situated are apt 

 "to acquire peculiarities which distinguish them as a class from 

 those engaged in other species of employment. They often 

 derive habits of thought and traits of manner from mere dwelling 

 together in particular localities, which a practiced eye may 

 readily detect. This grows out of the influence which men exert 

 upon others, by force of example, often in spite of themselves, 

 by the mere intercourse of ordinary life. And the nearer and 

 more intimate this association may be, the more marked and 

 direct the influence becomes. While, therefore, a business like 

 that of agriculture which extends to every part of a country is 

 felt upon the moral as well as the physical condition of a whole 

 community, it is itself modified by local causes by whicli the 

 habits of life on the prevailing opinions of particular sections 

 and districts assume characteristics and distinctive forms. 



We may not be able to give a philosophical reason for the 

 connection there is between the external circumstances by 

 which a man is surrounded, and the qualities which go to make 

 up the traits of his character ; nor may we detect the subtle 

 agencies by which a farmer in one locality is a different man 

 from what he would have been in another. But who can doubt 



