462 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



grow weaker and less pure together, till redemption comes, 

 if it come at all, in some form that restores to labor its true 

 dignity and influence. It may be by revolution, or it may be, as 

 we trust it will be in our land, by the conviction forced at last 

 upon the universal mind of a nation that slavery as an institu- 

 tion is no less hostile to the development of the physical pow- 

 ers of a people than it is to the dictates of a common humanity. 



However tempting, therefore, may be the cities and villages 

 of the South as marts of trade for our young men, there are 

 fewer attractions every year for our farmers of the North in 

 the cotton fields or rice plantations, where the white man is 

 ashamed to toil, and the unrequited labor of the j,black man is 

 wrung from reluctant sinews by the terrors of the lash. 



There is one other comparison which the farmer of Massa- 

 chusetts is apt to make, which creates a competition with his 

 own chance of happiness stronger than any I have mentioned ; 

 it affects him not only individually, but enters into his social 

 relations, and shapes in no slight degree the education and 

 prospects of his children; and that is, the comparison which is 

 made between the business and position of agriculture as a 

 pursuit and the various other callings and pursuits into which 

 the people of New England are divided. It is the farthest 

 from my intention to speak disparagingly of the honest pursuit 

 of any man ; and my object is, to ask the farmer to pause a 

 moment and look calmly at both sides of the picture which the 

 varied life of industry in New England presents before he is 

 ready to forego the certain sources of independence which he 

 enjoys for the fancied advantages which others possess. 



Men judge too often from outside -appearances. The bright 

 and yellow metal that so many are striving to grasp does not 

 always turn out to be gold. The grand house and beautiful 

 garden may serve as a pretty toy to the man of trade or com- 

 merce on which to expend the surplus of his fortunate gains, 

 and his fancy may be tickled with the idea of possessing what 

 others shall envy or admire so long as he is building or perfect- 

 ing it; but when he lias gained the object of his life, and grown 

 familiar with the pet of his riper childhood, he finds too often 

 that one docs not always exchange a life of toil for one of hap- 

 piness with case. 



