64 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



new channels of thought, and by new conceptions of power, or 

 new combinations of old conceptions, creates the marvels — 

 miracles almost — that fill the world of invention from day to 

 day ? Who supplies the successive races of men that, occupy- 

 ing for a brief hour an obscure spot upon the merchants' 

 exchange in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Paris and 

 London, give to the world of finance and politics its law ? 

 Does professional society reproduce itself? Can inventive 

 spirits call up their own successors ? Have the mercantile 

 centres of the world ever reproduced their own financial giants ? 

 Never ! The farm supplies all. It is the salt of the earth, and if 

 this earth's salt lose its savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted. 

 The proportionate number engaged in the various employments 

 of human life, justify the repeated calls of all professions upon 

 the agricultural world for recruits. The rotation of crops is 

 not more incessant, nor prolific, than its supplies of men. Of 

 a population of five millions and four hundred thousand male 

 persons over fifteen years of age employed in the various indus- 

 trial pursuits in the United States, in 1850, two million and 

 four hundred thousand, or forty-five per cent., were engaged in 

 agriculture. Of thirty-five million of people in France, twenty 

 million, or fifty-seven per cent., were in 1851, employed in 

 agricultural pursuits. In England the proportion is not less. 



Is it possible to state a higher claim to public consideration, 

 for any one element of public life, than that it creates the bulk 

 of national wealth, affords honorable and happy employment 

 for one-half of the industrial classes, replenishes the intellect 

 and genius of professional life, perpetuates the vigor and enter- 

 prise of the commercial world, provides physical sustenance for 

 all classes, gives stability to the restless movements of other 

 interests, and by its sober morality, chastens and subdues the 

 fiery elements of a corrupting civilization ? 



And yet I do not greatly err, I suppose, in stating that one 

 object, and that one a chief object, of the association that exhibits 

 to-day so brilliant a share of the agricultural wealth and strength 

 of the State, is to recall the public mind both to the necessity and 

 profit of a more general attention to its demands. Everywhere 

 we have heard the appeal sounded from the press, the pulpit, 

 the halls of legislation and the public assembly. Something 

 more than the apparition of gaunt hunger, that flits occasionally 



