THE REAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 1 3 



" no other labor is at once so good for mind and body, 

 and so worthy of freemen, as agriculture," was one that 

 might well be revived at the present day. 



It is something more than mere poetic fancy which 

 designates " the golden age " the days when kings, and 

 priests, and philosophers were husbandmen. The days 

 when love for the occupation, and veneration for sacred 

 customs pertaining thereto, combined in producing a 

 happy people, in making " the soil perpetual," in caus- 

 ing the land to " flow with milk and honey." They were 

 the days of national longevity, for agricultural nations 

 were the longest lived, and became the most eminently 

 accomplished, and the most wealthy in the truest sense. 



Whatever may be the political economy of the states- 

 men of modern times, the most eminent teachers of this 

 science have continued to uphold the wisdom of the 

 ancients in their ascribing to agriculture supremacy 

 among national industries. 



Quesney, the French political economist of the eigh- 

 teenth century, urged that " the sovereign and the nation 

 should never lose sight of the fact that the earth is the 

 unique source of riches, and. that it is agriculture which 

 multiplies them." J. B. Say, another French economist of 

 a later time, taught that " it is the acme of skill to turn the 

 powers of nature to best account, and the height of mad- 

 ness to contend against them, which is, in fact, wasting 

 part of our strength in destroying those powers she de- 

 signed for our use." 



Professor De Laveleye, in his " Elements of Political 

 Economy," a work recently published, earnestly main- 

 tains the sovereign worth of agriculture. " At the pres- 

 ent time," says he, " attention and encouragement are 

 exclusively given to manufacturing. If it be more im- 



