AND H O II T I C U L T U R A I. REGIS T E R . 



^ 



VOL. 



xvino 



PUr,;,[SHED BY JOSEPH BKECIC & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agbicultuhai. Wabehouse.) 

 BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 8, 1840. 



[NO. 40 ■ 



N , £ . F'A R IVl E R , 



AN ADDRESS 

 Delivered before the Middleser Soeitti/ of Husband- 

 men and Mannfadurers, ot (heir Annual Caltle 

 Show, Oct. 3, 18:W. Bv IIf.nry Coi.sh-n, Com- 

 missioner for the Agricultiira! Survey of the Slide. 

 Published in the .V. E. Farmer by request. 

 Farmers of Middlesex ami Fellow Cilizens : 



Agriculture is tlie theme of this occasion. You 

 sxpect me to speak of it. It is for this reason you 

 •lave honored me with an invitation to address you. 

 Possibly I may speali of it with some measure of 

 enthusiasm. My sense of it.s importance, in vari- 

 3US respects, cannot be increased. I entreat you 

 :o hear patiently and judge wiUi candor. It would 

 ppear like affectation if I should pretend to any 

 diffidelice in speaking o;i this subject ; but be- 

 lieve me, I am not vvanting in a ju.st sense of my 

 3wn detieiencies, nor in the respect which is duf 

 ;o the intelligent audience whom I address. 



The cultivation of the earth is m".n's duty and 

 'ousines*. He was formed for labor. Labor is the 

 indispensable and inevitable condition of his health, 

 his bodily and mental 'health, his physical, intellec- 

 tual, moral energy and vigor. Some have repre- 

 •aented the love pf ease and repose as a natural 

 instinct. It is no more natural than the love of la- 

 '. bor and action. Properly speaking, it is not so 

 natural ; and that we easily slide into habits of in- 

 dulgence and indolence, is the fault of education, 

 of false sentiments concerning the hardships of la- 

 bor and the value of repose, of vicious cockering in 

 our childhood, and sometimes of the e-xaction of la- 

 ; bor beyond our power, and to an excess which 

 makes it painful. Every young animal, the human 

 as well as the brute animal, finds his chief pleasure 

 in the exercise of his limbs, the expansion of his 

 lungs, and the full display of all his senses and fac- 

 ulties. He delights to run, to leap, to dance, to 

 wrestle. His mind wakes with his body. He is 

 full of thought. He pants with curiosity and in- 

 quisitiveness. His imagination gathers its golden 

 treasures every where, from field and roadside, 

 from hill and valley, from the depths of the sea and 

 the profounder depths of the azure ocean in which 

 he floats, 'i he beams of light bear him from sun 

 to moon, from moon to stare. Nothing satisfies 

 him. His mind never cries "enough." He pene- 

 trates into the third heavens ; and explores a uni- 

 verse, on the gossamer wings of thought The 

 muscles having once tried their strength, acquire 

 continually increased power, and find relief only in 

 exercise. So it is with the mind: There is be- 

 tween them an electrical sympathy, the chain of 

 which cannot be broken. It would continue so 

 through life, until the light began to flicker in its 

 socket, if we did not undertake, as we sometimes 

 call it, to amend nature, but more properly, to defy 

 and outrage her. We begin by repressing the vi- 

 vacity of youth and childhood, and utter our solemn 

 rules of decency and order, as though not a motion 

 must be made, unless made in the precise line or 

 angle or periphery of authority. Then fanaticism, 



with its lean and lengthened visage, puts on its 

 cowl, and comes upon the green, and tells the boys 

 and girls buoyant in the joy of life and youth, that 

 it is a mortal sin to play and dance. Why does 

 he not go to the lambs, and tell them not to skip 

 and play; and clip the wings of the birds; and si- 

 lence the busy hum of the insect tribe, rioting with 

 ecstacy in the joy of existence, and thus proclaim- 

 ing the beneficence of the Creator I Then, too, we 

 begin the work of improving the human frame, and 

 cramp it witli ligatures ai.d bandage3 and clogs, 

 wliich render every healthful effort of the muscles 

 almost agonizing, until_ use has reconciled us to 

 this vile durance ; and distort the joints and repress 

 the rushing tide of the blood, and derange the pul- 

 sations of the heart. The feebler si'.x require a 

 peculiar discipline, and with them the miraculous 

 'machinery of digestion is to be compressed and 

 crowded into the smallest space possible, and the 

 body cased so tight in its iron armor, like a chicken 

 trussed for the spit, that respiration becomes all 

 but impossible ; and the spine is so crooked and 

 twisted that an upright woman is hardly to be fouiul 

 in the community ; and then with a nonchalance and 

 a self-complacency inefl^ably ridiculous, we call the 

 limping Chinese barbarians! This incapacitates 

 u.= for labor ; this destroys all muscular -energy ; 

 Kjfainakes the plnnt wither ; and renders evory ex- 

 ertion painful. Then, likewise, we accustom our- 

 selves to speak of labor as an evil, and to talk of 

 rest and ease as a great boon. We compassionate 

 the laborer. We pity his condition as severe. We 

 look upon labor as vulgar, and to be dreaded and 

 disdained. Then, likewise, much of labor ts se- 

 vere. It is the more severe and oppressive, because 

 so large a portion of the community evade their 

 obligations and do notliing, but consume the fruits 

 of labor, excepting that with gracious condescen- 

 sion, u'^t to say, more properly, with insufferable 

 arrogance, thej'^ boast of their philanthropy and 

 charity in patronizing labor, by permitting the in- 

 dustrious classes to administer to their pleasures 

 and dissipations, and then paying them out of their 

 own earnings for these services. The fill -horses 

 do the work; they bear the weight; they start the 

 load; they hold back; while many, like the for- 

 ward horses in the team, wear the bells and wave 

 the nodding plume ; and amble and prance this 

 way and the other; but take good care not to rub 

 their sides with the traces, and do not move an 

 ounce. 



In the beautiful allegory of Genesis, man is rep- 

 resented as having been placed in a garden, redo- 

 lent with spicy perfumes, and filled with every lux- 

 ury which could regale or entrance the senses and 

 charm the imagination. The velvet couch of green 

 sward to recline upon; the gurgling brook to war- 

 ble his lullaby ; the shaded bower to protect him 

 from the noiuitide sun ; days unclouded by tem- 

 pests ; nights peaceful, serene, and spangled ; and 

 the earth pouring out its richest treasures, and 

 scarcely demanding that he should stretch out his 

 hands to gather them. This is portrayed in the 

 brilliant language of oriental poetry, as the golden 

 infancy of the human race. But man could not 



stay there. I will awaken no painful recollections 

 by alludifig to the irresistible seductions which 

 tempted him by an inexcusable disobedience, to 

 forfeit all this luxury and delight. I would oft'end 

 no man's prejudices ; but I understand this aa the 

 language of poetry, and suited, to point a most im- 

 portant moral. It is evident that man could not en- 

 dure this condition. He would have sunk into ef- 

 feminacy under such indulgence. Therefore it 

 was that the ('reator expelled him from Paradise, 

 and sent him ;>:it to till and to dress the earjh, and 

 to get his bread by the sweat of his -brow. So 

 long as his nature is what it is, the divine Provi- 

 dence could not have ordained for him a greater 

 benefaction. 



'! he cultivation of the earth, therefore, is man's 

 duty and business; made so by his constitution ; by 

 the necessities of his condition ; and by the appoint- 

 ment of his Creator. Let us not complain of it. 

 Let us thank God, for we have great reason to 

 thank him, that it is so. If we must complain, let 

 us complain as wp rany with the best reason, of ev- 

 ery institution, sentiment, custom of man, and -the 

 world is full of them, which prevents or interferes 

 with this great law of his being. 



The earth, then, was given to man to cultivate. 

 It must be cultivated or he must perish. All the 

 bread which ?u<!;i.!ns him comes from the earth, and 

 from no where else. All the clothes which lie 

 wears come from the earth, and from no where else. 

 The various professions and occupations in society 

 arrogate to themselves a great importance and an 

 extraordinary and exclusive utility. What a duet 

 tee make, said the fly. as lie whirled round upon 

 the cart-wheel ! We should be sorry to disturb the 

 self-complacency of any of them; but you might 

 extinguish all the commercial and trading commu- 

 nity to-morrow ; all the merchants, and bankers, 

 and speculators; all the learned professions; all 

 the fancy and ornamental professions and opera- 

 tives ; and the world could get on without them. 

 But without the cultivation of the earth, the whole 

 race of man nmst become extinct. 



Look next at agriculture as the source of wealth. 

 We shall not now entertain the discussion as to 

 what constitutes wealth. We shall not undertake 

 to consider the position, that agriculture is the only 

 producer of wealth. Both these positions, howev- 

 er, are more nearly true than most persons would 

 be perhaps at first willing to admit. These posi- 

 tions are indeed fully true of labor, though not ex- 

 clusively of agricultural labor. 



We admit that all may be called wealth which a 

 man can appropriate to his necessities, to his uses, 

 to his comfort, to his pleasure, to his improvement, 

 or to his ornament. These several ends give a dif- 

 ferent comparative or relative value to different 

 substances. Their value ia also affected by their 

 scarcity, or the difficulty or the ease of obtaining 

 them, and the profusion in which they may be pro- 

 duced. We admit, likewise, that many of the pro- 

 ducts of agriculture require, besides the labor of 

 production, much other labor to bring them into a 

 condition for use. The manufacturer, therefore, 

 from the turnspit at the fire, to the most delicate 



