50 



ity, agriculture has steadily more than held its own proportion. In our 

 system of the. economies of the State, it is highly important that this pursuit 

 should continue to hold its own, advancing equally, at least, with the others. 

 Although it bears to the whole only the proportion of one-seventh, and 

 hardly that, it is, in the great account of industries, a base for all the others. 

 I am speaking of it now only in its connection with tlie financial relations 

 of the life of a community. And I have the honor to say, that if the agri- 

 culture of the State, comparative])' small as it appears, were to be allowed 

 to go to decay and ruin, tiiere would follow a disturbance in our whole 

 economical system, which woidd be felt and deplored from Long Wharf to 

 the banks of the iludson. You and I have known, Mr. President, how a 

 slight failure in any department of production in one hemisphere has em- 

 barrassed the general society of the world. We have seen, within the last 

 twenty-five years, once or tv.'Ice at least, that a failure of ten per centum 

 in the agriculture of the continent of Europe, small as that per centum is, 

 has given wings of buoyancy and profit to the grain of the United States, 

 all through, from the colossal stacks of Oliio and Illinois, to the little cereal 

 attics of Massachusetts. That small yet grave annoyance and disturbance 

 in the relations of the international exchange of the world, resulting from 

 unpropitious weather, or mischievous insects, or any other causes unseen 

 and unknown, around the Danube or the Caspian, would be intensified and 

 felt through all our sympathetic classes here at home, if, I^y ignorance, or 

 Inattention, the measure and the enterprise of land cidtivation in our own 

 State should be permitted to fall essentially below its present rule and 

 standard. The analogies of our experience agree with this expression of 

 belief. The lesser thouoht oftentimes controls the other thoughts of our 

 life, — the younger and weaker child usually has an Influence In directing 

 the destinies of the others,— the smaller interest in the economies of States 

 cjuite commonly gives direction, and progress, and destination, to the 

 broader and larger. The agriculture of INIassachusetts, — the one seventh 

 only of the whole, — always has led, and always ought to lead the rest. 

 Keep tJiis sound, and vigorous, and fresh, and enduring. If you would have 

 the rest all pov/erful and Imperishable. 



But beyond the financial and economical considerations which connect 

 the success of agrlcultui-al occupations with the general success of a State, 

 by ligaments that can never be safely sundered, there are political and 

 social necessities whlcih are equally obvious and important. Tliis has been 

 more sensibly felt and acknowledged In Great Britain, where almost the 

 same projiortlon of persons Is engaged in cultivating the land as In Massa- 

 chusetts. Mr. Burke, after referring to the time in the history of Rome, 

 when the country tribes were thought more respectable than those of the 

 city, exultantly attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue and 

 sober settlement of all the English struggles for liberty, to the fact that the 

 landholders, of every degree, had at all times been in close union with the 

 other great interests of the country, and had been allowed to lead and mod- 



