salubrity of climate, the beauty of landscapes, the pleasures of honest industry, 

 and the zest of rural sports, will undoubtedly furnish themes for thought until 

 the fashion of this world shall pass away. 



Whatever may be said of the wonders of mechanics, agriculture is the basis 

 of all civilization. And civilization is the condition of the highest rational 

 enjoyment. Perhaps it would be more proper to say that agriculture and 

 civilization must go hand in hand, at least where laborers are free, and are 

 able to become the owners of the soil. 



It is agriculture alone that can support the dense population which the highest 

 civilization demands — that can furnish food for the busy throngs who control 

 the machines that civilization has harnessed to the plunging water and the 

 expanding steam to quadruple the man-power of the world, till the machinery 

 of England alone equals in its producing power the unaided labor of all the in- 

 habitants of the globe. 



Agriculture must furnish not only the bulk of food used by civilized nations, 

 but much of the raw materials to be used in their manufactures. The millions 

 of spindles and shuttles al! over the world are busy to-day in transforming the 

 products of agriculture into the varied fabrics which the comfort and taste of 

 civilized nations demand. But it is also to be said that it is civilization alone 

 that can so perfect agriculture as to rest upon it. Civilization climbs by a 

 staircase of its own building. It lays one step and then mounts that as a basis 

 from which to build another. And the great physical basis which it must first 

 make sure of, and imbed in every step of its upward progresses agriculture — the 

 great producer of food and raw materials. At every upward step agriculture 

 must be raised to the greatest efficiency possible. And this can be done only 

 by linking it to all the other great industries of the world. They are perfect 

 only as they form a system. They can no more be separated than the system 

 of the body can be separated. The extent to which we do thus link them 

 together will measure our civilization, for civilization advances just in propor- 

 tion as man avails himself of all the forces of nature, and pushes his energies 

 into every field of productive labor and every field of thought. The whole 

 world, physical, mental and moral, is given to man for his inheritance, and he 

 will never reach his highest estate till he cultivates each of these fields in due 

 proportion. To do this most successfully it has been found that within certain 

 limits a division of labor is necessary, as in the human body, which is one, the 

 hand and eye and ear, have each their appropriate work. Division of labor 

 gives skill by constant practice in a single direction, and makes one man de- 

 pendent upon another, which tends to peace ami good fellowship in society. 

 Hut when it is carried too far, it simply transforms a man into an efficient 

 machine, and has a tendency to destroy a lull development of character. There 

 are workmen who can only make heads to pins, or the twenty-fourth part of a 

 steel pen. This is their work, year in and year out. There are scientific men 

 even, who have grown scientifically small and weak in studying science, 

 because they judged it necessary to give their whole powers to a single line of 

 investigation. Theoretically they seemed to be right, but practically they were 



