AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



^ 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural Wahehouse.) 



VOL. xvn.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 20, 1839. 



AGRICULTURAL, 



AN ADDRESS, 

 iefore the Essex .Ig^ncultura! Society, at Topsjield, 

 September 27, 1838, at their Annual Cattle Show, 

 Hy Leonard \Vithi,\gto.v. 

 (ConcludeJ.) 

 There is another evil. No lieterogeneous com- 

 jsitioii can last. We have retained the iJea of 

 ,e old system with the form of the new. They 

 e destructive of each other. There is a silent 

 lirit, which tinges our fancy and tinctures all nur 

 eas of gradation and eminence. It still seems to 

 y that one profession shall be more lionorable 

 id profitable than another, while at the same time, 

 theory and in practice, we throw the doors wide 

 )en and make all alike accessible to every class. 

 he consequence i« there is a pressure to those 

 hich are esteemed the more desirable professions, 

 nterprise and honor are confined to narrow chan- 

 'Is. An anecdote will explain what I mean, 

 wo advertisements were recently published in a 

 nghboring city ; one for a clerk in a store ; the 

 her for an apprentice to learn the blacksmith's 

 ide. The number of applicants for the former 

 ace was fifty ; for tlie latter, not one. 

 But how shall we avert the evil ? It is certain 

 ; cannot reverse our republican institutions ; nor 

 3tore the ancient ranks. Some plan must be do- 

 sed within the sphere of manners, more ^ilnble 

 the spirit of the age ; more gentle in its opora- 

 ms ; more salutary and healing in its effects. 

 ) elucidate this point is our main inquiry. 

 In the First place, then, we must bring our man- 

 rs and our political tlieory qiore into harmony. 

 ir creed must sanction our practice, and our prac- 

 :e must be in conformity to the spirit of our creed. 

 'e must not attempt to put the 7ieto tvine into old 

 Htles ; else the bottles break and the ivine runneth 

 t and the bottles perish ; or, in plain language, 

 3 republican spirit must be put into the repuhli- 

 n forms ; and we must be content to take the 

 stem, the whole system and nothing but the sys- 

 n, with all its blessings and attendant evils. If 

 , men are born free and equal ; and all professions 

 e alike honorable, then say so at once ; and leave 

 e balance of the relative numbers to be reuula- 

 i by the relative profits; as it certainly will be, 

 not controlled by these subtle, coloring ideas, 

 tierited from other ages and antiquated .systems. 

 wo grand ideal powers are now brought into 

 ?ntal collision, and are shooting their moral am- 

 ijnition across the Atlantic. On the one side, 

 jr theory is deeply felt among the powers of Eu- 

 Ipe. It produced the French Revolution ; and is 

 |ll producing a deeper revolution, though silent, 

 the vision of eastern politicians. On the other 

 nd, their commercial monopolies, their institu- 

 |ins and manners are exercising a deep influence 

 ler us. It is felt in the traveller ; the summer 

 liitant ; the steam boat ; their newspapers ; their 

 'bates ; their titles ; their reviews ; their wit and 



their metaphysics. Even the late coronation of the 

 queen Victoria was not without effect. The whole 

 system of commercial wants and supplies grows 

 ; up from these social forms and supplies them. 

 Every cargo of fashionable goods creates a taste 

 and leads to an expense, unfavorable toropublican- 

 i i-:m. For my part, though no friend to sudden in- 

 novation and wishing to place myself as far as 

 possible from the spirit of modern radicalism, I am 

 compelled to say, that it is my wish, that every- 

 thing, in this western world, should radiate from 

 one great central idea; that we might have repub- 

 lican manners ; republican fortunes ;* republican 

 bonks ; ond republican eloquence ; that everything 

 might be latently blended with that spirit, which 

 hails the improvement and recognizes the equality 

 of man. Let the central altar be built with un- 

 pidished stones and be tinged with the crimson of 

 our own rustic sacrifices. 



Education too should take a shape from our 

 public prospects. Every father and tutor should 

 educate his son or pupil with reference to the con- 

 dition, which his country imposes and the duties 

 she requires. 



In the Second place, we must see the true causes 

 of high prices of our native productions. It is a 

 warning voice, calling us to survey the tendency 

 of things. The original mode of trade among men, 

 was by barter; but the tendency to philosophical 

 generalization, among thinking men, was found in 

 in the affairs of trade : and money was invented, 

 analogous to general terms in reasoning. By this 

 wonderful substitute, we find the relative po^vcrs 

 of skill and industry among mankind. It is a kind 

 of thermometer to show us when the production is 

 wanted and when the supply is too great. We 

 foresee the approach of famine by the rise of prices ; 

 and commerce pours in her cargoes in the destitute 

 spot. The balance too among the professions is 

 kept by the same cause. How wonderful it is, 

 among the caprices and tastes of individuals, the 

 millions of a nation, acting on no patient examina- 

 tion and from no general statistics, how wonderful 

 it is, that the relative numbers in the various em- 

 ployments are kept as well as they are. No man, 

 not even the philosopher, can tell what proportion 

 tlie number of shoemakers should bear to the num.- 

 bor of tailors ; or how these professions are actu- 

 ally balanced ; but every youth, when about to 

 learn a trade, can ask whether it is likely to be 

 profitable. Thus prices become the marks and 

 figures on the great scale of adjustment ; and the 

 scale woul! be perfect, were not these prices dis- 

 turbed by accidental causes. 



* That is, small fortunes, not sufficient to enable the 

 possessor lo indulge in the conventional beauties of fash- 

 ion, but to lead him to every natural, eternal beauty, 

 which improves the taste and mends the heart. Still it 

 must be remembered, that some large fortunes are wanted 

 even in republics, on the principles of public spirit, or 

 whence must come our capital for great improvements .' 

 I had the benefit, the other day, ofa railroad, which cost 

 800,000 dollars, nut a cent of which came or could come 

 from my poor pocket. 



When then floor is ten dollars per barrel ; In- 

 dian corn one dollar twnntyfive cents per bushel ; 

 potatoes fifty cents ; and other native productions 

 in the same ratio, what is it, but the social ther- 

 mometer, indicating by its infallible mercury that 

 the proportion among the professions is not kept ; 

 that some employments call loudly for hands ? It 

 is certainly disgraceful for a nation, situated like 

 our own, to daily jiray professedly for its daily 

 bread, and yet not be willing to raise it. 



The laws of nature must be kept; and they all 

 pointus,intheirscverest inflictions during probation, 

 to the noble reward that waits on reformation. But 

 Thirdly. The human mind is, after all, governed 

 by some very fine and invisible threads, which, 

 though delicate in their texture, are strong in their 

 eftects. There is a latent impression of elegance, 

 grace, beauty, which a young man gets early in 

 life, from a thousand indefinite causes, powerfully 

 determining lum in the choice of his profession. 

 Woe to that h^n, who sees, in his youthful morn- 

 ing, the rainbow settle on the wrong hill ; and is 

 doomed t.j pursue it through life over unfordable 

 streams and up impracticable heights. There is 

 an idea of the beautiful in morals and in life, to 

 kalon, the fopd image from which ominates our 

 strongest desires, and around which play our bright- 

 est dreams of felicity. It is this, which coloring 

 all the operations of reason, governs the man ; de- 

 cides his choice ; inflames his energy ; increases 

 his skill.- and gives him the elements of success. 

 One W:Xi finds it on the ocean ; another on the 

 land ; one vi war ; another in peace ; one in 

 science;- another in poetry. Petrarch had lii» 

 Laura ; and it has been seriou.3ly doubted whether 

 she ever liad flesh and. blood ; whether she ever 

 existed out of poetry ; wiiether the bard did not 

 embody his own fancies and give to an airy nothing 

 a local habitation an I a name. In a certain sense, 

 every man has his Laura ; who fills his imagination, 

 and leads him through life. Erery man has some 

 ideal of perfection and happiness after which he * 

 always reaches, though never gra.=iping ; and which .; 

 modifies his pleasures and his pains from his cradle 

 to his tomb. In vain does reason speak; in vain 

 does experience warn ; in vain may you balance 

 against his ideal visions the collected utilities of 

 life : if a man does not, in some degree, reach his 

 contemplated goal, he is poor in the midst of abun- 

 dance, and wanders a wretch through the world. 

 Nor is it the young and imaginative alone that are 

 governed by these ideal forms ; the most cool and 

 avaricious feel their power. Their Laura is not 

 the same as Petrarch's ; they will not write son- 

 nets to her praise — certainly not *i(c/j sonnets — 

 but their views are just as ideal ; and the phantom 

 they pursue assumes her beauty and her power, 

 solely from her relation to their temper and taste. 

 It is not the materhl gold that absorbs the miser's 

 lusts ; to him, as toother men, it is worthless dross ; 

 it is the ideal of being a rich man ; it is the laurel 

 of a CrcEsus shading his dwelling and adorning 

 his tomb. 



If a certain style of living seem essential to our 



