AGRICULTURE AND WAR. 31 



ships, and white sails waft the precious argosy into the quiet 

 haven — all implements which commerce uses to give value to 

 the crops of the world — tea from China, spices from the east, 

 fruits from the Mediterranean, hemp from Russia, grain from 

 the Baltic, sugar and coffee and cotton, the staples of trade, 

 from every tropical luxuriance. 



Some one has said " land alone is the true source of wealth, 

 because it produces every thing that man desires for the supply 

 of his wants, for his enjoyments, his pleasures, and his fancies ; 

 and because it constantly reproduces a quantity superior to 

 what has been consumed to effect its reproduction. This 

 excess of reproduction, this gratuitous gift of the soil, this net 

 produce is the only fund that can be employed to encourage the 

 progress of labor, to reward its success, promote improvements, 

 and indefinitely to increase the sum of public and private 

 wealth." If this be true, from the rich valleys of eastern 

 rivers to the praries of the west, what an abundance of riches 

 do we possess ! 



This capital, I conceive, can be employed in two ways ; one 

 for the increase of the foreign trade of a country, the other for 

 the supply of necessaries and the increase of domestic comforts, 

 and luxuries. The former adds to the perishable wealth of a 

 people, in proportion to the profits realized on the product 

 raised ; and it brings with it, in the same proportion, all those 

 characteristics which usually attend rapid accumulations of 

 wealth, and the sudden changes which go with them. It is 

 estimated by those commercial and manufacturing enterprises 

 which create large home markets, and from which good farm- 

 ing should radiate in every direction. The latter enriches 

 and embellishes steadily and slowly. It requires small farms, 

 good cultivation, industry, personal application. Its attendants 

 are the New England farm-house, that home of frugality, pru- 

 dence, simple habits, and quiet Christian virtues — that birth- 

 place of so many of the best human faculties required by a 

 busy world, and the New England church and school-house. 



To those great agricultural sections of our country where 

 the value of land is favorable to large possessions, and where 

 the quality of the land invites to easy and somewhat indolent 

 agriculture, we must look for a large part of that surplus pro- 

 duction which enters into our domestic and foreign commerce, 



