12 MR. king's address, 



the garden of the world, now as degenerate in morals as in hus- 

 bandry — of England, made one great specimen farm by thor- 

 ough cultivation and plentiful manuring — he would talk to you 

 of Parnassus and Tempe and Helicon, of the beauties of nature, 

 the decorations of art, and the embellishments of fancy. But I 

 will not affect the learning I have not — I will not borrow wings 

 which would but betray my awkwardness in the use of them. 

 And it is not with foreign climes, nor antiquity, it is not with 

 poetry nor fiction, it is not with Hesperian lands nor with East- 

 ern lands, that we, as farmers, have to do. Let us recall our 

 wandering thoughts and fix them on our own limes and neighbour- 

 hood, on our own farms and homes. It is enough for us to 

 know that farming has always been an honorable pursuit when 

 it has been honorably followed ; that it will always be an hon- 

 orable, profitable and fashionable occupation as long as men 

 continue the somewhat inelegant, but not altogether unpleas- 

 ant or unnecessary iiabit of eating and drinking. Let farmers 

 remember that ihey have inherited a character distinguished for 

 sobriety, honesty, temperance, industry, frugality and manly in- 

 dependence ; let them strive to sustain and elevate this charac- 

 ter. 



But my friends, a grave charge has been preferred against us, 

 seriously affecting our character as good farmers and honest men, 

 and I fear too many of us must plead guilty. We liave been 

 called extortionate and austere — not precisely charged with 

 robbing widows' houses or with reaping where we have not 

 sown, but with extorting too many crops from our fields without 

 making them a due return, with exacting too much of them and 

 of withholding their deserved wages : we have been accused of 

 cropping our lands severely without cultivating and manuring 

 ihem in any reasonable proportion, of mowing our fields mauj 

 years in succession till their over taxed, exhausted energies can 

 yield us nothing more. The high prices of labor and manure 

 and the difliculty of obtaining them have been alleged as ex- 

 cuses for this thriftless and cruel practice, and there is something 

 of truth and more of plausibility in the defence. As a remedy 

 for these evils and a sure way of iuiproving your land, I can do 



