144 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



was it but a feeble band of tillers of the soil, — feeble in numbers 

 and in physical resources, but mighty in spirit, — that began, two 

 centuries ago, on Plymouth Rock, to lay the broad foundations 

 of this great Republic? And who has it been but their suc- 

 cessors in employment, that have pushed that mighty enterprise 

 from point to point, until, from Plymouth Rock to the Rocky 

 Mountains, the last traces of savage life have disappeared, and 

 the wide expanse between become studded with villages and 

 cities, and overspread with an enlightened, virtuous and happy 

 population, basking in the full sunshine of freedom, and blest 

 with all that renders life desirable 1 And what is it but the 

 Genius of Agriculture, disseminating and equalizing among the 

 earthwide human family the varied bounties of the common 

 mother of mankind, that, — setting at defiance all the laws of na- 

 ture, overarching the mighty river, casting down the mountain 

 summits, raising up the interjacent vallies, and whitening every 

 ocean, sea, and lake with canvass, — has not only intersected 

 every land with navigable waters and with roads of iron, but 

 bound together, in commercial ties, the most distant cities and 

 kingdoms, and even brought the ends of the earth into prox- 

 imity ? And what is it, but the same beneficent agent, that is 

 destined (under the guidance of our holy religion), by extend- 

 ing the arts of peace, and linking all the tribes of men together 

 in one grand community of interests, to cause the nations 

 ultimately to "beat their swords into plough-shares, and their 

 spears into pruning-hooks," and thus to become the great pa- 

 cificator of the globe ? And is there nothing honorable in 

 achievements like these? The brow of him who comes in 

 triumph from the field of conflict and of carnage, is accustomed 

 to be wreathed with laurels ; why not the brow of him who 

 triumphs in a bloodless conquest over nature, and who turns 

 that conquest, not to purposes of fyranny, but to the elevation 

 of his species ] 



Agriculture is profitable, in that it fully meets the wants of 

 man's physical nature. I make no pretensions to physiological 

 science, but I think its professors will bear me out in the follow- 

 ing proposition, viz : that the first and most important demand 

 of our physical nature is exercise, exercise free and abundant, 



