PRESIDENT HITCHCOCK'S ADDRESS. 151 



The Mutual Dependence between Agriculture and other 

 Pursuits. 



[An Address delivered before the Agricultural Societies of Hampshire end 

 Hampden Counties, in Massachusetts, at their Anniversary Fairs, in JV rth- 

 ampton and Springfield, in October, 1845, by Rev. Edward Hitchcock, 

 LL. D., President of Amherst College.'] 



" Omnes artes, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quod- 

 dam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se 

 continentur." — Cicero pro Archia. 



You will doubtless think, Gentlemen, that this is a strange 

 introduction to an Agricultural Address ; and that I still imag- 

 ine myself to be within college walls, or, by mesmeric retrospec- 

 tion, to be standing before an ancient Roman audience : for the 

 words which I have quoted were once uttered by the great Ro- 

 man orator, Cicero. And I have placed them at the head of my 

 remarks on this occasion, because they contain essentially the 

 subject which I wish to bring before you. It may, indeed, seem 

 pedantic, — certainly it is somewhat quaint, — to repeat the orig- 

 inal. But I have observed that quaintness is sometimes a great 

 help to the memory, and makes an important sentiment more 

 impressive. And these are my sole reasons for quoting the very 

 words of Cicero. Their meaning in English is this : 



" All the arts, cultivated among men, are linked together by 

 a certain common bond and relationship." 



Cicero had undertaken to defend the poet Archias against a 

 prosecution in a court of justice, and, as a preliminary, he un- 

 dertook to show that poetry was not an art isolated from all 

 other pursuits, but formed one of the links of the golden chain 

 that binds all human pursuits together. I wish to show the 

 same in respect to agriculture. Nay, I shall not be satisfied by 

 showing that it is related to all other pursuits, but that there is 

 such a relation as implies a mutual dependence ; so that they 

 cannot exist in a healthy state independent of one another. I 

 must therefore modify somewhat, and make more specific, the 



