8 



and grain that food the sheep, and the bread and meat that 

 support the hiljorer who converts the wool into cloth." He 

 also controverted the idea that the encouragement of manu- 

 factures was injurious to commerce ; and held it to be a sound 

 doctrine, that the prosperity of commerce would always be in 

 proportion to the prosperity of agriculture and manufactures. 



Daniel Webster once spoke of agriculture as follows : "It 

 feeds us ; to a great extent it clothes us ; without it we 

 should not have manufactures, we should not have commerce. 

 They all stand together, like pillars in a cluster, the largest 

 in the centre, and that largest is agriculture." Washington 

 said, "I know of no pursuit in which more real and impor- 

 tant service can be rendered to any country, than by improv- 

 ino- her agriculture. A skilful agriculture will constitute one 

 of the mightiest bulwarks of which civil liberty can boast." 

 Did he foresee the great struggle through which his country 

 was to pass, and through which it could not have passed 

 triumphantly but with the assistance of this " mighty bul- 

 wark" that compelled the South to give up sooner than 

 she would, had not starvation stared her in the face? It was 

 the lack of bacon and corn, as well as the force of our bullets, 

 that gave us the victory. It was the power we held to sup- 

 ply that mighty army with bread, combined with the bone 

 and sinew of our brave farmer boys, that made the North in- 

 vincible. What could we have done without our railroads? 

 And what interest, more than any other, built our railroads ? 

 Agriculture and her associate interests, without which they 

 could not be supported to-day. 



Look at California. A little more than twenty short years 

 have passed since the discovery of her gold. For ten years 

 she poured her vast treasures into the lap of the world, and 

 still she was poor in every qualification that makes a State 

 great and prosperous. She was a non-producer of the great 

 staples. She had but little agriculture, although endowed 

 with a rich virgin soil and the finest climate on the continent. 

 She had no manufactures, and consequently but little com- 



