252 WISCONSIN STATE AG III CULTURAL SOCIETY. 
whole heavens’; then it is that I turn once more in trusting faith, 
to the farms, the fields, and the forests of America, as the places 
whence are to come the electric spark of patriotism, and the thun¬ 
derbolts of power which shall purify the air, and cleanse again the 
national sky. 
This, fellow citizens, will be, must be so ; or Carlyle’s remark is 
true; and the ground is already broken, where shall stand the 
tomb of popular liberty in America. 
As in the past, so will it always be in the future ; upon the 
shoulders of the American artisan, and the American agricultur¬ 
ist, rests the fair fabric of American freedom. Bearing such 
heavy burdens, sharing such vast responsibilities, I have but one 
desire, which is to see you enjoying more of the comforts, more 
of the good things of this world, within your easy reach. 
I trust the day is not far distant when more spacious, better 
ventilated, and therefore more healthful sleeping apartments, will 
be the rule, not the exception, in all your houses ; when hot and 
clod water baths, easily and cheaply supplied from the reservoirs 
on your kitchen stoves, shall be a thing of daily convenience; 
when on every farm the ice house, costing nothing in money, and 
but a day or two of labor and care, shall stand with its welcome 
contents, to charm away the summer heats [and cool the fevered 
brow of disease ; when the tired laborer returning from the field, 
covered with the dust and perspiration of the day’s toil, shall 
merge from the cleansing bath, to retire to a slumber at least as 
sweet and refreshin g as that which greets the well-groomed draft- 
horse of the stall. 
Then shall broad, level roads skirt your possessions, and forest 
trees planted by your own hands line the wayside, tempering the 
edge of the prairie blast and rivaling in beauty New England’s 
sweetest rural scenery ; and then let the culture of art and music, 
not in extravagant, but liberal allowance, come where the birds 
sing! Come where the flowers bloom! Then shall you walk 
crowned the true monarch of the earth, the fairest type of man’s 
best achievements. 
And when you shall be called hence to other fields; when other 
sounds shall fill your ears ; when the harvest song of labor shall 
blend with the choral music of the stars, and you shall journey on 
