14 



All history furnishes illustrations of the truth of our position, 

 that an independent yeomanry is the basis of free institutions. 

 Whenever a people have succeeded in republican forms of 

 government, or in curtailing the sovereign power for any 

 length of time, whether among the vineyards and olive groves 

 of ancient Greece, the mountain homesteads of the Swiss 

 peasantry, or the broad acres of Columbia's virgin soil, or the 

 vast ranches of South America, the majority of the inhabitants 

 have been devoted to agriculture ; and it is equally true that 

 the cultivators of the soil have been the most prompt, the most 

 active, and the most enduring in defending their rights and 

 institutions, whether local or national. 



THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO NATIONS. 



It would be an interesting topic, did the time permit, to 

 show the relations of agriculture to nations — to illustrate this 

 fact: — that land and its cultivation are the life powers of 

 nations, which give strength, liberty, wealth and permanence. 

 This is true of the most ancient — it is true of the most modern. 

 As agriculture has been most advanced, civilization has most 

 advanced, and flourishing and stable nationalities have been 

 established. Such is the evidence in the case of China, whose 

 husbandry has attained great perfection, as it must that a third 

 of the whole human race might be fed from its soil. Here is 

 an empire that has lived and flourished ever since the morning 

 of time. History runs not back to its beginnings ; and to-day 

 it teems with life, abounds in wealth, and boasts of its philoso- 

 phy, literature and sciences. Through all the ages agriculture 

 has been most honored by the Chinese. It has been recog- 

 nized by the sages, patronized by the statesmen, and praised 

 by the poets. Even the Emperor, claiming relationship to 

 the gods, every year comes down from his throne to mingle 

 with the people at their grand agricultural festival, and holds 

 the plough and turns the furrow with his own hands. The 

 Hindoos present another illustration. "We find them a polished 

 and refined people, possessing a very perfect system of religion^ 



