]8 MR. SALTONSTALl/s ADDRESS. 



mad pursuit of fame, so seldom acquired, and generally 

 so unsubstantial and fleeting. 



The happiest effects may be anticipated from this 

 change in public sentiment. We no longer hear a farm- 

 er spoken of as necessarily a dull and plodding person, 

 to whom much education is useless, whose pursuits fur- 

 nish no scope for enterprize or improvement, and can 

 have no connexion with literature or science. The 

 sneering remark of Dr. Johnson, " he talks of beeves," 

 will not be repeated by any one who regards his repu- 

 tation. 



Let this improvement in public opinion go on, until it 

 shall no longer be asked, what good does a thorough and 

 libei-al education do a farmer '( It is time for farmers 

 to learn that time and money expended on the educa- 

 tion of their sons, are not lost, if they return to the oc- 

 cupation of their fathers. The notion that they must of 

 necessity enter one of the learned professions — so call- 

 ed — is a great mistake, and should be exploded. How 

 many young men, who might have been happy and use- 

 ful, as agriculturists, have been obliged to abandon a 

 crowded profession, after struggling along through some 

 of the best years of life, or have resorted to low petti- 

 fogging, or to the most miserable and contemptible of 

 all pursuits, office-seeking, for the pay ! Agriculture 

 invites our educated young men to fields which yield to 

 industry and to judicious cultivation, a sure reward, and 

 which furnish ample materials for the exercise of the 

 mind, and even for the cultivation of taste. By a judi- 

 cious arrangement of buildings and trees and shrubs — 

 by a proper regard to order and neatness in cultivation, 

 a farm may be made an object of great beauty. And it 

 has been as justly as beautifully observed, that "there 

 is not an operation of practical husbandry, however hum- 

 ble, that is not immortalized in Thompson's or Gray's 

 or Cowper's song. To such men, how melodious was 

 the reaper's song, how graceful the mower's movements, 

 how picturesque the loaded train, groaning beneath the 

 burden of the gathered harvests." Is it not strange 

 that a pursuit which in all ages has furnished subjects for 



