20 



a summer stream. But when he resorts to those fields 

 which he fancied were Elysian, he wakes from his delu- 

 sion. However large his cajoital, it will require all his 

 care and all his skill to keep it from evaporating in fancy 

 farming. Or if, of humbler means, he labors himself, 

 he soon learns by hard experience that the poetry of 

 agriculture is one thing and the prose another and a 

 very different thing — that the constant care of his crops 

 and his stock and the management of farm matters gen- 

 erally, require quite as much judgment and care and 

 skill as mercantile traffic, whether in tapes or in ton- 

 nage — at the counter or on the wharf. 



Yes, farmers of Essex, you know better than I can 

 prove or illustrate, that your occupation demands intelli- 

 gence, application, labor, skill — that immunity from care 

 is not the privilege of your lot. You know also that 

 your gains, though small, are sure — that your pursuits 

 invite not to habits of speculation — that your property 

 is not all upon paper to be blown to the winds by the 

 vicissitudes of trade. Let the reflection that the spot of 

 Earth you till, is your own, and that in tilling it to the 

 highest perfection, you have ample scope for the con- 

 stant exercise of the noblest powers of mind, animate 

 you to redoubled exertions to attain to that perfection. 



