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animate creation. Now this highest form of labor can 

 exist only when there is enterprise, and enterprise is 

 the child of a connnon necessity. And there is no 

 reason in the nature of man why agricultural labor 

 with us should be a struggle for a subsistence merely, 

 and therefore to be avoided as far as possible. It is an 

 art; it invokes and will employ a high order and great 

 variety of learning ; it develops the physical man ; it 

 cultivates and chastens all moral qualities, and it stim- 

 ulates the intellect. Agriculture in Massachusetts is 

 not on the one hand so hopeless as to leavej men in 

 despair, nor, on the other, has nature been so generous 

 as to invite us to rely upon her spontaneous products. 

 Excellence is an attainment through struggle and labor 

 amidst the active competition of other men. We judge 

 men, men judge themselves, not so much by their 

 actual attainment, as by the process of the struggle and 

 the obstacles which have been overcome. If you see 

 a farm in the highlands of Worcester equal to the best 

 cultivated one on the alluvial banks of the Connecticut, 

 the Worcester farmer at once takes the highest place 

 in your esteem. And this preference does not rest 

 upon the superiority of the attainment, but upon the 

 evidence which it furnishes that there has been a hi<j[her 

 exhibition of enlightened labor, energy, enterprise, and 

 genius in one case than in the other. And you will 

 pardon me if 1 say, in illustration of a view 1 intend to 

 take, that the Connecticut river farmers, though more 

 favored in soil and climate, are not the best farmers of 

 Massachusetts. If, in your tniiids, agriculture is a mere 

 means of sustaining animal life, then no doubt you 

 should place yourself where it can be sustained with 

 the smallest amount of physical labor. But agriculture 



