4 HAMPSHIRE AGRICULXUKAL SOCIETY. 



place in the arts of life ; and in the progress of civilization ! The 

 same heavens indeed stretch out their bine expanse above us. Hol- 

 yoke, Mount Tom, and all your beautiful hills stand to day, and will 

 forever stand, in monumental grandeur, Avhere the Great Architect first 

 laid their firm foundations. The Connecticut rising from its original 

 fountains, still rolls its placid w^aters through your fertile and luxu- 

 riant valley, emptying into the same ocean. But what, at sundry 

 points, has so strangely diverted these waters from their ancient bed ? 

 Go with me to yonder rising manufacturing towns on its banks, and 

 tell me what has thrown those barriers across its natural channel ; 

 and what bids them flow in artificial courses, subordinate to the will 

 and service of man ? Go with me to our other large manufacturing 

 'towns and cities, and tell me what has laid out those broad and beau- 

 tiful streets, built those abodes of reduplicating thousands, erected 

 those immense manufactories, those institutions for the intellectual, 

 social and moral improvement of society ? What means that hum of 

 countless spindles, that perpetual clatter of looms, that everlasting 

 buzz of machinery ? Why that rumbling of cars freighted with the 

 products of art and industry, which is to create trade through the 

 length and breadth of our land, and to compete with other countries 

 in the great commercial ports of the world ? What has so suddenly 

 made our beloved New England in arts and manufactories, the rival 

 of her English mother? 



What? — Labor guided by intelligence, — the application of science 

 to the useful arts. 



These, surely are not the results of accident. They are from the 

 stamp of no Ajax' foot, from the stroke of no magicians wand, from 

 the interposition of no miraculous power. No ! they are, one and 

 all, glorious illustrations of human capability, cooperating with the 

 benevolent design of the creator, and acting in perfect harmony with 

 his natural laws. They are the conquest of mind over matter, the 

 dominion of man over nature, the triumphs of thought expanded, 

 strengthened, and enobled by education, the progress of art nurtured 

 in the school of science. 



But in these respects, the history of New England is only the his- 

 tory of the progress of improvement throughout our beloved Repub- 

 lic, and which sustained by Agriculture, give her a more absolute in- 

 dependence than Venice, Rome or Athens ever enjoyed, and which 



