But all this utilization of labor, though evei-j-vN-here apparent in 

 the mechanic arts, has httle bearing upon agriculture, you are ready 

 to say. It has indeed much less than it ought. For when dominion 

 was given to man it was that he might till the earth and subdue it 

 He will forever eat his bread by the sweat of the face, for Agi-icul- 

 ture must fi'om the natm-e of the case ever demand long continued, 

 careful manual labor. And because this is so, every advantage 

 should be seized upon to utilize that labor. Every blow must be 

 made to tell. And to secure this result ignorance and waste must 

 both be banished from our farms. 



Unfortunately for us, the need of utilizing agricultural labor has 

 never pressed upon us as a nation. A broad territorj^ unsui'passed 

 in fertihty, and almost boundless iu extent, is even now waiting for 

 man to scatter the seed upon it and gather the luxiu'iant harvests 

 The gi'eat productiveness of the American soil has given a rich 

 retiu'n to the rudest forms of husbandry. And where one planta- 

 tion has been impoverished, an abundance of virgin soil is ever 

 waiting for the plough. The cultivators of the earth have been, 

 like the early miners on the gold fields, gathering the gold ready 

 quan'ied to the hand. The corn and wheat and cotton have been 

 taken fi-om the soil without return ; but such drafts are sure to be 

 dishonored in the end. The account with the earth must be kept 

 good as well as that at the banker's. The practice of the Agricul- 

 turist has too often been hke that of the spendthrift, who ruins his 

 credit in one place and then tries a new sphere of action leaAdng 

 unpaid debts in every town. 



The inventor's genius has been brought to the farmer's aid, but 

 the most effective machines are those for sowing seed and gathering 

 harvests, increasing ten fold the farmer's power to rob his soil. In 

 the garden States of the West, this process may be long continued, 

 but every year the product lessens and the robbing process must 

 finally come to an end. We maj' feed the world with our grain and 

 supply its busy looms with cotton, but in more than one half of our 

 country we do the work by sheer land robbery. Any process that 

 yearl}- leaves the soil poorer in materials for croj^s, is luiworthy the 

 name of agriculture. 



And so it happens that no portion of our country is so favorably 

 situated for the increase and diffusion of agTicultural knowledge, as 

 New England. Her soil is thin and rugged, and her chmate severe. 

 It is impossible to live by land robbery here. New England soil is 

 no long-suffering creditor. You must make full returns for every 



