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Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
mention it at this time to draw your attention thereto, as it is high 
time you were giving some thought to this subject, for the issue 
will follow close uppon the heels of financial reform. 
My friends, whatever may be said to the contrary, the farmers 
have the welfare, and hence the responsibility, of the country in 
their hands. It is for you to judge how best to secure it. But be 
assured your path lies parallel with the labor interest of the coun¬ 
try, and the laborer who owns nothing but his muscle and unde¬ 
veloped brain, demands your tender regard and kindest consider¬ 
ation. 
Goldsmith wrote, years ago, that— 
“ Princes and Lords may flourish and fade, 
A breath can make them as a breath hath made; 
But a bold peasantry, a country’s pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.” 
And the sentiment is as true to-day and just as pertinent to our 
case, as to theirs for whom he wrote. 
The price of the bushel of wheat, the pound of pork, the pound 
of wool, butter or cheese, is of immediate importance to you; the 
difference of a few cents on either, makes millions in the aggregate; 
but of ten-fold more importance to you is it, that there should be 
no drones in our hive, and no lack of flowers for the working-bees 
to gather honey from. 
The most dangerous element to society, is the poor with empty 
stomachs; the most unfortunate situation for the country to be in 
is, when trade lies dormant, when the forge is hushed, when the 
plow is resting in the furrow, and the mill is silent as the tomb. 
The poor only earn as they labor—they eat only as they earn— 
the consumption of charity is meagre indeed. 'The rich drones, the 
non-producers, may leave us, take such of their wealth as they can 
scrape together and depart for other lands. A moment, as it were, 
in the flight of time, would regain the wealth, could w r e but retain 
and employ the strong arms and willing hands of labor. 
The following, from Gerald Masey, strikes me with such force 
just here that I cannot refrain from giving it to you: 
a Train up thy children, England, 
In the ways of righteousness—and feed them 
With the bread of wholesome doctrine. 
Where hast thou mines—but in their industry? 
