DR. spofford's address. 23 



present day. It encourages and rewards the spirit of enterprise ; 

 it diffuses the knowledge of useful experiments, and introduces 

 the use of important inventions ; and tends by multiplying 

 opportunities of social intercourse, to do away those illiberal feel- 

 ings, and groundless jealousies, which often exist between differ- 

 ent sections of country, and sometimes even disturb the harmony 

 of towns and neigliborhoods. 



Some have entertained doubts of the utility of this annual 

 festival, as a useless expense of time and money. Let such 

 remember that man is a social being, that a constant unvaried 

 round of solitary labor is unfitted to his nature, and by no means 

 adapted to the highest development of his intellectual and 

 physical energies. Divmes, lawyers, physicians, have their 

 societies, in which they meet to discuss their professional opera- 

 tions and brighten their minds by friendly collision. Merchants 

 daily assemble on 'change, to learn the interests and improve 

 the facilities of trade. And shall the farmers deny themselves a 

 day, on which all who take an interest in agriculture can meet 

 on common ground, merely because they do not handle the 

 direct and palpable income of a day's labor ? No ! Their 

 necessities do not demand it, and the place they occupy in our 

 community forbids the slavish idea. 



Societies are found the most direct means of accomplishing 

 almost every enterprise in our growing republic ; and annual or 

 periodical festivals, have the sanction of scripture, and the 

 remotest antiquity. The Jewish ritual enjoined a festival and 

 offering of first fruits at the ingathering of the harvest, a day 

 in which they should " do no servile labor." The Romans and 

 the Greeks had their agricultural fetivals, dedicated to Bac- 

 chus and Ceres, whom they honored as the gods of corn and 

 wine : and it has also the sanction of reason, as the fruits of 

 autumn fall, to assemble, mutually to communicate the result of 

 their labors, and enjoy what has been emphatically styled the 

 farmer^s holiday. 



Long may this society enjoy the smiles of heaven. Long 

 may they enjoy the character for industry, sobriety and morality, 



