MR. GAGE'S ADDRESS. 



tendency may bo also, in part, ascribed to the eager 

 desire for rapid accumulation, which has been so 

 prominent a feature in the proceedings of the last few 

 years. The slow and moderate returns, which the 

 soil affords to its cultivators, have been, too often, 

 spurned for those golden harvests, that have dazzled 

 so many eyes, on fields to which the plough and the 

 sickle are unknown. Meanwhile, the moral consider- 

 ations, which are, so immensely, in favor of the well- 

 tried path of patient effort, have been overlooked. — 

 But eyes, before which visions of. uncounted weaWi 

 have been holdino; their seductions, are beginnino- to 

 see things in the light of sober truth. Phantoms have 

 vanished away. Realities are now seen and felt. 

 The attention, the hopes of thousands, who lately 

 looked upon the cultivation of the soil as fit only for 

 the patient plodder, — alike destitute of ambition and 

 enterprise, — are now turned to agriculture, as the rich 

 fountain whence the very life-blood is diffused 

 through the community ; — as a mine of wealth far 

 more substantial than any to which the brains of 

 speculators have given birth. Multitudes, thrown by 

 the disasters of the times, from their airy castles and 

 brought to the ground, arc now trusting, like Antaeus 

 in the fable, for support, to their mother earth. 



A pursuit, like the farmer's, should never be deem- 

 ed unworthy the attention of an enlightened, patriotic 

 man. The celebrated games of Greece, in her proud- 

 est days — games designed as nurseries of a patriotic 

 spirit and of hardy virtues — were unworthy in com- 

 parison with a festival like yours ; — a festival designed 

 to promote the peaceful and healthful pursuit of agri- 



