KEY. MR. EMERSON S ADDRESS. T 



dition, the contemplation seems alarming. Look at ]5oston with ita 

 quarter of a million of inhabitants, besides the horses kept there ; at 

 New York with one million of inhabitants, and then at the smaller 

 cities and villages, and you see at once that they are devouring all the 

 wealth of the soil at a rapid rate, because for all the provisions they 

 take from the soil they give nothing back ; but all the manure which 

 should be produced by this consumption is carried off through the 

 sewers into that great wash-bowl — the sea. Here is a vital question, 

 upon which every other question that pertains to the well-being of hu- 

 manity, hinges. How shall this tide of sewerage be turned back to 

 the soil whence it came V Assyria gives us the picture, in her sparse, 

 sick, starving inhabitants, of what this whole beautiful continent, so 

 full of health, wealth and intelligence must, though not in our day, 

 ultimately become, unless some system of fertilization shall be devel- 

 oped, which shall give the soil as much richness as has been taken 

 from it. If this process of exhaustion, now going forward, is allowed 

 to continue, it will come to that, at last, that nothing but a great up- 

 heaval of old Ocean's bed, forming new continents laden with that 

 rich deposit, which has been accumulating for ages, can perpetuate the 

 habitability of the Earth. Geologists teach us that such upheavals 

 have taken place in the past, but that the Earth's crust is so thick they 

 never can again. 



Fourth. The pursuit of agriculture develops the poetical sentiment. 

 The farmer does not write his lines in ink on paper, but on broad lands 

 with plow and spade. His imagination is inspired by the growth of 

 vegetation, the waving of grain, and the development of animal life, as 

 he sees these things on the farm. Farming does not develop that dry, 

 utilitarian lif^ that many think it does. No other pursuit has so much 

 of the spirit of poetry in it. Who is that poet who, above all others, 

 carries eheer to the hearts of the people of Scotland, England and 

 America? It is he who said "Thankit be God I can plow." Bums 

 was the farmer poet. Margaret Fuller, in a critique of hers, on the 

 earlier poems of Longfellow, said, in substance, that his verses were 

 inspired by the study, and not the field. But Robert Barns was the 

 genuine son of the soil, and his immortal lines are true to nature, and 

 thrill a responsive chord in the heart of every one of her lovers. 



6th. The pursuit of farming develops a healthy moral sentiment. 

 Many who leave a country life in youth to enter the more public walks 

 of life, and gain wealth and distinction afterwards, do so oftentimes at 

 the expense of those moral qualities which could have been better pre- 

 served on the farm. The course of James Fisk is an illustration of 

 this — his own words judging him— when he said, for a long time the 

 only alternative before him was a prison or a palace. Nature is moral, 

 and she breathes morality into those who work and commune with 

 her. The success of business and professional men is more nearly re- 

 lated to morality than every one thinks. Nothing develops the ele- 

 ments of succees like agriculture. Most of our distinguished Senators 

 are the sons of farmers. In the face of the immortal Webster you 

 could see the mountains of his native New Hampshire. Finally, we 



