MR. Oliver's address. 27 



jostle for eminence among a crowd of political brawlers and 

 scramblers for office, 



" Gleaners of the spoils, 



Who breathe around a pestilential breath, 

 Till virtue's self is tainted with the touch." 



Dawe's Athenia of Damascus. 



And yet he would do wrong, did he not keep up a well- 

 judged participation in political matters, and it is here, in the 

 United States, here and now, that the just position of you 

 farmers, as a controlling element in the government, is ac- 

 knowledged, and that your influence is felt, is desired, and is 

 welcomed. 



But turning to the more grateful subject of the farmer's agri- 

 cultural education, I find a wider field of interest opening out 

 before me, too extensive to be discussed in detail, even if such 

 discussion were not an unpardonable exaction upon your pa- 

 tience. I shall do no such thing, but I do urge with special 

 earnestness upon you, that while you cultivate your farms and 

 bring to bear upon them, every appliance that can enrich and 

 invigorate them, and so increase their productiveness, — mak- 

 ing two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, — 

 making two golden apples to smile from the branch, where but 

 one before 



" Did glitter in the sunbeam ;" 



that doing so much for earth, you should not omit to do some- 

 thing towards enriching and invigorating your own intellect, 

 that you may make two useful thoughts to spring where but 

 one sprang before ; something towards the cultivating of your 

 moral nature, that you may make two useful acts to live and 

 do their blessed work, where but one had blessed before. 

 Your own interest is deeply concerned, and certainly promoted 

 by a steady perseverance in such culture. I tell you that the 

 wiser you are, in all proper and useful wisdom, the better and 

 the more abundant will be the results you can secure from ev- 

 ery acre of your property. The more you acquire by careful 

 study and thought and observation, with the wiser and surer 

 judgment, and with the greater certainty of success, under the 

 blessing of Him who hath given the earth to man for a pos- 



