ADDRESS, 



By HON. BENJAMIN F. THOMAS, 



]\[r. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



What lessons are yfritten for us, farmers, in the earliest record 

 of the human race. The first man, fresh from the moulding 

 hand of his Creator, -hearing his yet unmarred image, was a gar- 

 dener. " And the Lord God took the man and put him into the 

 garden of Eden, to keep and to dress it." As he looked with joy 

 and admiration upon the new creation, with what intense emotion 

 must he have heard the voice of his INFaker, giving him dominion 

 over the earth, and commanding him to replenish and to subdue 

 it. To the All-seeing eye the work was very good. Well might 

 the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout 

 aloud for joy. From that hour to this, it is in the culture of the 

 earth that man has gone back nearest to the glory of his first 

 estate, the Eden of tranquil joy and peace. 



The next lesson is like unto the first. The curse that fell upon 

 the second man cut him off from the culture of the earth. And 

 the Lord said unto Cain, When thou tillest the ground it shall not 

 yield unto thee her strength. And Cain went out from the 

 presence of the Lord and built a city. Went out from the 

 presence of the Lord I IIow many a young man who gives up 

 the quiet occupations of rural life for the struggles and terrible 

 temptations of the market-place and the forum, goes out from the 

 presence of the Lord, leaving behind him the simplicity and purity 

 of life and thought by which his childhood was drawn near to 

 Him; the loving eye, which saw Him in the smiUing bud of 



