6 



and root-growers, and fruit-growers, and dairy -managers, and 

 cattle-feeders, for information upon the various topics in which 

 eacli one has manifested skill, and warning him that they who 

 talk the most oftentimes produce the least, I leave you to the 

 knowledge which the best of you have acquired by practice, 

 and call your attention to a matter of fundamental importance 

 to you all — a question upon the solution of which in a satis- 

 factory manner depends the very existence of agriculture as an 

 industry to be cherished and developed by a free, enlightened, 

 educated and ambitious people. 



We are told that the great mass of mankind live by tilling 

 the soil, in every civilized country on earth ; but while this fact 

 is constantly impressed upon our minds, we are not so definite- 

 ly informed with regard to the manner in which they live, their 

 social condition, their civil relations, their domestic economy. 

 The condition of those employed in manufactures and the me-, 

 chanic arts varies, we are aware, as the plan in which they are 

 organized in various countries varies — prosperity, thrift, intel- 

 ligence being secured to some, poverty and ignorance being 

 visited on others. And judging by the various conditions of 

 associated man in the many countries in which society is or- 

 ganized, we can infer that the agricultural population of one 

 country differs from the agricultural population of another, as 

 their domestic conditions, their modes of education, their social 

 and civil obligations differ. The tenant-farmers of Great 

 Britain, the peasantry of Russia, the farmers of Germany, the 

 small land-holders of France, the agricultural citizens of the 

 United States, all represent one industry — and yet how widely 

 they differ in everything which goes to make up man's condi- 

 tion as an intelligent being and as a member of some form of 

 state and society ! So true and striking is this that I am 



