ADDRESS. 



tinued without them ; but it would be only existence as a sav- 

 age ; and of course only a small fraction of the present popu- 

 lation of a country could in this way even exist. Besides, 

 they would owe their sustenance, not to agriculture, but rather 

 to the bounty of Providence, which has caused the earth, in 

 almost every land, to bring forth spontaneously the fruits es- 

 sential for the food of a scattered population. But agricul- 

 ture, properly so called, cannot exist without commerce and 

 manufactures. Tlie very first step in farming, I mean the 

 breaking up of the soil for the seed, requires the artizan's skill 

 in the construction of tools. Without that skill, indeed, the 

 farmer's present comfortable, and it may be elegant habitation, 

 must be exchanged for the skin lodge of the Pawnee, the bark 

 hut of the New Hollander, or, at the most, the wigwam of the 

 aborigines of New England. His dress, too, if dress he could 

 obtain, must be the undressed hide of some animal ; and his 

 wife and daughter must exchange their silks, muslins, and cal_ 

 icoes, for the filthy skin of the horse, the racoon, the bear, or 

 the buffalo ; festooned it may be, as the ne plus ultra of sav- 

 age skill, with the quills of the porcupine, the feathers of the 

 eagle, or bark painted with elderberries. In his habitation, 

 too, the nicely sanded or carpeted floor must give place to the 

 lap of mother earth, where vermin, lizards and serpents, would 

 dispute with him the right of possession. An unglazed hole 

 in the wall must let in the storm and the wind, as well as the 

 light ; the stagnant pool must be the mirror before which he 

 must make his toilet ; and his glass, pottery and porcelain, 

 must give place to a wooden trencher or bowl, wrought out by 

 p, flint. Let the farmer be thus stripped, for a iew months, of 

 all the necessaries, comforts and luxuries which come to him 

 through the arts, manufactures and commerce, — let him, like 

 Nebuchadnezzar, be compelled "to eat grass as oxen, until his 

 hairs are grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's 

 claws," — and he would cease to say of his present state of 

 comfort and happiness, " is not this great Babylon, wliich I 

 have built, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my 



