330 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ing must hare been carried on under great difficulties during 

 the middle ages, the fiirmer being under the protection and 

 subjection of the feudal barons, who were often at war with 

 each other ; and if the farmer escaped the ravages of the 

 enemy, the levies made upon him by his so-called protectors 

 left him little for his labor. 



The early history of this country is a record of agricultural 

 industry. For many years after the landing of the Pilgrims 

 farming was the chief occupation of the people. We have 

 quoted a writer as saying, of the early Romans, that those 

 qualities which fitted them for conquering the world were 

 acquired by the skill and persevering industry so necessary 

 to an intelligent cultivation of the soil. In a still greater 

 degree may we attribute the wonderful growth of this country 

 to the New England character, which was developed and 

 matured amid hardships and trials on the old New England 

 farms, around the old New Eno:land firesides. I believe that 

 it was something more than accident that brought our ances- 

 tors to this land, so wonderfully adapted to the development 

 of the spirit of liberty and progress. 



While visiting the White City — the great illustration 

 of our national prosperity — I came in contact with an en- 

 thusiastic resident of the new State of Washington, who, 

 after describing its productive soil and enlarging on its other 

 wondrous qualities, capped the whole with this exclamation : 

 "Why, sir, if the Pilgrim Fathers had landed on Puget 

 Sound instead of Plj^mouth harbor, they would have accom- 

 plished in fifty years all that has been done in nearly three 

 hundred years." I admired his loyalty to his S.tate and his 

 enthusiasm for her greatness ; but I could not forbear the 

 remark that, in that case, with everything ready to our 

 hand, we would more likely have remained subject to 

 Great Britain. The struggle to become independent came 

 after the struggle with the soil, and the victory over the 

 stern and rock-bound coast gave them courage to encounter 

 the stern and rock-bound king. AYe to-day complain of 

 the lack of opportunity which the farmer has for growth and 

 usefulness, but here upon the same hills and in the same 

 valleys where we live, the farmers of Massachusetts, sur- 

 rounded by savages, and neglected by the home government, 



