AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. I'JT 



AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



From an Address before the Bristol S ■ 



BY HON". J. W. MILLER. 



The extent and fertility of our lands have produced new 

 striking developments in agriculture. Operating upon a 

 as bountiful as it is boundless, and aided by great variety in 

 climate and soil, its productions arc not only vast and varied, 

 but of a character and kind to satisfy the wants of the world. 

 Art and labor had well nigh exhausted their powers in meeting 

 the pressing demands for food and raiment. A more red' 

 source for the supply of grain, and a cheaper raw material for 

 manufacturers, were the two great necessities of the world. 

 The agriculture of the United States has met the emergency ; 

 and Indian corn and American cotton have relieved the wants 

 of humanity. 



Agriculture, under these enlarging influences, assumed a con- 

 trolling position. No longer a new employment, it has become 

 a power in the state. It is a great conservative power, founded 

 upon the land and regulated by the owner of the soil ; giving 

 stability to government and progress to the people ; checking 

 the fury of democracy, thwarting the wild Bchemes of politi- 

 cians, relieving the disasters of domestic trad plating 

 the balance of foreign commerce. It is a grand industrial, 

 productive power, which, year by year, not only Bnstains in 

 comfort and luxury twenty-five millions of people at home, but 

 also Bupplies the annual demands of foreign countries, and out 

 of its inexhaustible granary relieves the famine of nations. 



But the high and influential position to which agriculture lias 

 attained in the United States has tlms far been rather the w 

 of Nature than of Art. We have been reaping a new field and 

 gathering harvests from a virgin Boil : and, though the Held may 



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