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ample and teaching. Be careful to sow good seed, which 

 shall spring up in a harvest which shall bless the world. 



The future citizenship of the land depends largely on 

 the nature of the farmer's home. 



The yeomanry of the land is large. It is homogenious, 

 conservative. It is self-poised, independent, gifted with 

 energy and power. It is intelligent and far-sighted. If 

 it may perpetuate itself in the honesty, and integrity, and 

 courage, and fidelity of the rising generation all the 

 interests of the Commonwealth are assured. All other 

 things are dependent on the farmer. The farm is the 

 basis of all wealth and civilization. Take away its fer- 

 tile meadows and sweet pastures, its well-kept fences and 

 appointments; destroy its pure sod, and scatter its choice 

 blooded stock; tear down the home-like farm-house, and 

 trample the garden, and cut away the orchard, — and you 

 have done what you can to destroy all that is blessed in 

 the old Commonwealth. Destroy the farms that send 

 these choice products which grace this day, and society 

 would relapse into the age of Nomadic tribes; cities and 

 commercial marts would be silent as the sand-covered 

 palaces of Ninevah ; business industries would be de- 

 serted, and all arts would fail. Manufactures are only 

 the handmaids of agriculture. The smoke of the forges, 

 the hum of the factories, the incessant heart beat of the 

 engines, the railway thoroughfares — those great arteries 

 of the republic, — are only the movements of our national 

 life, which have their inspiration from the cultivation of 

 the soil, which is the basis of all. Countless trains of 

 coal, that light the fires on the hearth-stones of the 

 nation's homes ; petroleum, which changes darkness into 

 day ; wheat, and corn, and barley, and oats, and rye, 

 which feed the people of our land, and the starved mil- 



