26 MR. gray's address. 



sion, that there are many considerations, growing out of 

 the employment itself, which should influence men of all 

 classes and professions to carry out the plan which 1 have 

 so imperfectly sketched, and which I believe to be the 

 only eflectual means of constant progress and permanent 

 improvement in the art. There are many peculiarities in 

 this employment which render it upon the whole the 

 most desirable of any other.* 



It is the most independerd of all professions. The pos- 

 session of a good farm enables the farmer to obtain near- 

 ly all that is absolutely essential to his existence and com- 

 fort. In professional life, there is a constant dependence 

 upon the caprice of others. We are obliged to consult 

 their prejudices, to bear with their indignities, submit to 

 self-denial, and be harrassed with cares and anxieties, of 

 which the farmer has not the most distant idea. He is 

 lord of the soil, his own master, and is under no tempta- 

 tion to descend to anything mean or unworthy of a man. 

 The fluctuations of business affect him far less than 

 most other classes, and the rewards of his toils, although 

 they come slow, are always sure, so long as the rains and 

 the sunshine are granted him his store-house is sure to be 

 filled. 



Being, as it were, isolated and guarded from the vicis- 

 situdes of fortune and of favor, his situation is peculiarly 

 favorable for cultivating the virtues of patriotism. The 

 hills where he feeds his flocks, the fields where he sows 

 his seeds and gathers his harvests, attach him to his coun- 

 try. They are associated with all his trials and all his 

 joys, and hence, if these fields are invaded, his arm is the 

 first and the strongest to repel and punish the invader. 



The situation and employment of a farmer are best 

 fitted to cherish and strengthen the social affections. 

 The sources of his pleasures are in his own family, and 

 by his own fire-side. His daily task accomplished, he 

 gathers around the blazing hearth, amid bright faces, and 

 buoyant spirits, to indulge in the sweets of domestic inter- 



* See Addresses by the Rev. Henry Colman before the Agricultural and Hor 

 ticultural Societies of New Haven County, 1840. 



