TV r. .lOHNSO'J. V 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 UEFORE THE 
 
 \.i.NliiybluljliLlljlil\LM]yrjli, 
 
 At I'tica, Friday, Seiit^iiiber 18. ls«:{. 
 
 BY REV. S. W. FISHER, D. D, 
 
 PRESIDENT HAMILTON COLLEGE. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 ij.smiMimiiiiiEff 
 
 V 
 
 BY REV. S. W. FISHER, D. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT HAMILTON COLLEGE, 
 
 At Utica, Friday, September 18, 1863. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 VAN BENTHUYSEN, PRINTER, 407 BROADWAY. 
 
 1863. 
 

ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 The scene before us is not only full of animation, 
 but of interest to every one who has the happiness 
 and progress of his race at heart. This great 
 State — an empire in itself — is largely represented 
 in its mechanical, and especially its agricultural 
 interests. It is not merely an annual festival; it 
 is a great school, where the results accomplished 
 by the ablest and most practical minds in these 
 departments are exhibited for instruction. You 
 have assembled here from the farm, the shop, the 
 counting-room? and the office ; from the valleys of 
 the Susquehanna, the St. Lawrence and the Hudson 
 and the shores of our beautiful lakes, to learn the 
 progress which, as a State, we are making in those 
 arts which are most essential to our support, our 
 comfort and our civilization. The ancients had 
 their Goddess of Agriculture. They reared altars 
 and offered sacrifices and fruits to her in worship. 
 They celebrated her festivals with music, feast- 
 
ing, and often wild orgies. But they knew nothing 
 of such a scene as this. Neither the Agora, at 
 Athens, nor the Campus Martins, at Rome, in 
 spite of all their boasted civilization, was ever 
 illustrated by an exhibition such as on this spot 
 now meets your eyes, and quickens the pulse of 
 every true patriot. Most devoutly do we recognize 
 the divine sovereignty that establishes natural 
 laws, and orders propitious seasons. The farmer, 
 above most men, is impressed with a sense of his 
 dependence upon divine power, and in the pure 
 light of Chistianity is ready to acknowledge it. 
 A thousand circumstances teach him this truth ; 
 his daily life is full of those uncertainties which 
 human power cannot determine. But, to-day, we 
 recognize also another element of vast importance 
 in our elevation — we recognize the manhood, the 
 intelligence, the capacity for progress of the people. 
 You see in this varied exhibition, mind entering 
 into natural laws, and skill combining them to 
 effect these rich products. For all that man can 
 do, all that the highest intelligence can do, is to 
 avail itself of the power God puts in our hands and 
 use it most skillfully. The lightning is God's power ; 
 but man, by his intelligence, guides it harmlessly 
 to the ground, or makes it his post-horse to flash 
 
his thoughts round the world. This you see 
 illustrated in a hundred forms to-day. I have 
 listened to orators whose words have thrilled and 
 moved multitudes ; I have stood in vast libraries 
 and studied the thoughts which the greatest minds 
 have given to the world, but nowhere have I been 
 more deeply impressed with the power of the 
 human mind for intelligent effort than when 
 moving amidst this exhibition of the products of 
 our farmers and mechanics. 
 
 I have said that this exhibition was a school — a 
 school for mutual instruction, where the most 
 successful of the farmers and mechanics come to 
 teach us by their solid, visible works, how much 
 intelligence and skill, guiding the hand of labor, 
 can effect in advancing these great interests. To 
 see is to believe ; to know what has been done 
 leads to the inquiry hoio it can be done again, and 
 this is father to the purpose, to do it yourself. No 
 man, with his eyes open, enters this exhibition 
 without getting either some new impulse towards 
 producing what is excellent, or new ideas as to 
 the way in which it may be done. Especially is 
 this true of those whose interests and success lie 
 in this direction. The farmer asks himself why he 
 may not have as rich fruit and as fine vegetables ; 
 
6 
 
 why his lands may not produce as large a crop of 
 grain ; why he cannot rear as good stock as any 
 other man. These agricultural implements, which 
 are working so great a revolution in fanning, he 
 examines to see what improvements have been 
 made, and how he can best avail himself of them. 
 The mechanic gets new ideas of excellence in 
 workmanship, or has his ambition kindled to equal 
 or surpass what he here sees. Among the old 
 Romans there was a certain freedman whose crops 
 so far surpassed those of his neighbors that they 
 accused him of witchcraft and brought him to 
 trial for it. When he appeared in the forum, he 
 produced a stout daughter and some excellent 
 implements, — as iron spades and shears, — and 
 presenting these together with his oxen to the 
 Senate, said, " These, Romans, are my charms." 
 Thanks to the light of a Christian civilization, we 
 have advanced beyond the superstition which 
 would hang a man for raising better crops than 
 his neighbors. We go at once to the reason of 
 things. How did he do it ? What instruments 
 did he use ? What means did he employ ? and 
 may I not use the same means and secure as good 
 results ? And it is in this respect — in quickening 
 men to ask this question and then in giving them 
 
a satisfactory answer, that this State and these 
 county societies, with our papers devoted to 
 agriculture, are effecting a most admirable work 
 for the people all through the State. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the thought which rises upper- 
 most as we survey this exhibition, the thought 
 which forces itself upon my mind as I witness the 
 success which has attended the efforts of these 
 producers, is this, that precisely the same principle 
 prevails here as in all other departments of human 
 labor, the principle that intelligence, other things 
 being equal, makes the superior farmer and me- 
 chanic. I do not mean that a mere classical 
 scholar, or a profound lawyer, or a poet, or a line 
 writer, will necessarily be a good farmer. The 
 field of knowledge is infinite, the objects to which 
 it may be applied are various as the pursuits of 
 man, and it is utterly impossible that any man 
 should compass the whole or be eminent in all. 
 Hence we must have a division of labor and of 
 thought. One man takes this department and 
 another that. Your department is that which 
 embraces the production of fruits,' !^grains and 
 animals necessary for the support and comfort of 
 society. And what I mean to say is, that intelli- 
 gence here makes the superior producer; that, 
 
8 
 
 with the same diligence and labor, a thorough 
 mastery of all the knowledge belonging to your 
 business will give the greatest success. 
 
 I do not belong to that school which thinks that 
 ignorance is good enough for the masses of the 
 people ; that because a man must labor with his 
 hands his intellect is a useless appendage. The 
 first man God made, the highest, most intelligent 
 of the race, was a farmer. He made it his business 
 to apply his intelligence to the tilling of the soil 
 and the cultivation of its fruit. He, who could 
 go through the highest operations of the human 
 mind, the work of giving fit names to all the 
 objects of nature, was not too learned or too 
 scientific to be a cultivator of the earth. This 
 same principle of intelligence, which in everything 
 else gives success, has its place here as the char- 
 acteristic of the most successful operator. When 
 you pass by a farm where everything is in its 
 place, the fences all right, the fields waving with 
 the finest crops, the trees bending beneath the 
 weight of the best kind of fruit, the stock such as 
 would adorn the park of a king, the house arranged 
 for comfort, the barns and stables well planned 
 and well kept, you feel instinctively that there is 
 something there higher than mere diligence and 
 
9 
 
 labor, that an intelligent mind, a master of his 
 business, has guided the hand of labor and the 
 result is success. 
 
 Take your mower and reaper for an illustration. 
 It is but a mass of wood and iron. But reflect a 
 moment what an amount of intelligence is involved 
 in making thesa effective. You must first discover 
 the ore and then guide the hand of labor in quar- 
 rying it. Then you must build your furnace and 
 separate the stone and the iron. Then, by another 
 process, you must change the internal structure of 
 a part of it and crystallize it into steel. Then you 
 must give shape to all its different parts. Then 
 you must combine them into a certain relation, so 
 as to make your force tell where you wish it. 
 Then you must select the right kind of wood and 
 fashion and fit it. Then apply your force. But 
 if you use horses, you must first train and then 
 harness them. You must tan your skins into 
 leather, and shape and cut and sew it. And now 
 harness your team to it, and let a man, not a clod, 
 not an animal, hold the rein. See then how 
 intelligence flashes from every part of it as it 
 moves along. See through what long travail of 
 patient thought, searching, inventing, experiment- 
 ing, analyzing, combining, you have made a 
 
10 
 
 machine — a reaper — an Amencan reaper, that 
 shall command the homage of the best minds in 
 Christendom, and bear away the palm over all 
 similar contrivances in all parts of the world. 
 
 Take still another illustration — what, to some, 
 may seem no illustration at all. Take one of those 
 fruits — a pear, an apple — so large, rich and luscious. 
 It may be that here and there nature alone may 
 produce such fruit ; but you cannot trust nature on 
 a large scale. To raise such fruit uniformly you 
 must put your mind into it ; you must add your 
 intelligence to guide the operations of nature ; you 
 must select the right position, the best soil, and 
 the best fruit ; you must graft and prune and care 
 for your trees before you can secure so fine a pro- 
 duct. Nature does much ; but nature, directed by 
 your intelligence, will do vastly more. Every one 
 of these products is a result of nature's work and 
 your work combined. And so God meant it 
 should be. He meant that in this very way your 
 own minds should find exercise and development, 
 and you should fill out the measure of an intelligent 
 man. He does not bring these things to you and 
 say, eat and drink and enjoy yourselves. But he 
 says, use your minds, let them guide your hands, and 
 then nature will bless you with her richest fruits. 
 
11 
 
 But, gentlemen, if 3^ou would have a just idea 
 of the real dignity of your profession, you must 
 view it in connection with the sciences to which 
 it is intimately related ; you must survey the field 
 of knowledge which it actually covers in order 
 to understand the high intelligence which, in 
 this age of the world, its most successful prose- 
 cution imperatively demands. It is a libel upon 
 the age and upon your department of labor to 
 suppose that the least education and smallest 
 amount of knowledge are sufficient to qualify you 
 to master it. Let us look for a moment at the 
 science of vegetable chemistry. It is only within 
 a few years this science has assumed its present 
 large proportions. The name of Liebig will at 
 once suggest the immense progress it has made in 
 a short period. Now, this science introduces you 
 at once into that beautiful system of laws God 
 has constituted for the production of food. It 
 lays bare the secrets of nature, hidden from the 
 foundation of the world. It associates your intel- 
 ligence with that of Him who made this world 
 for your benefit. It enlarges at once your sphere 
 of thought. It stimulates, it exalts your thinking 
 powers. It furnishes elements of thought, new 
 ideas, which you can combine and follow out in a 
 
12 
 
 hundred directions. And all this, too, lies legiti- 
 mately within your own field of observation and 
 labor. It takes the grain of wheat and tells 
 you what are its component parts, what it gets 
 from the air, the sun and the rain, and Avhat it 
 derives from the soil. It analyzes the soil and 
 tells you of what it is composed, and instantly 
 determines what soils are adapted to the different 
 crops you wish to raise. Nay, more than this, 
 it tells you not only of what elements your crops 
 deprive the soil, but since God has kindly provided 
 the materials to repair the waste made by produc- 
 tion, it analyzes the vegetable, animal and mineral 
 manures, and tells you how to combine, and then 
 how to apply them so as to prepare your ground 
 for the special harvest you wish to gather. Thus, 
 it prepares you for your work. It enables you to 
 see as with the eye of God. It gifts you with an 
 intelligence as high, as noble, as quickening as that 
 of the physician, or the lawyer, or the statesman. 
 I know some say, this is all theory; give us 
 that which is practical. Very well ; I, too, am 
 seeking for that which is practical — that which 
 will make you the finest producers in the world ; 
 that which will make our American farmers the 
 most intelligent and successful in their business of 
 
13 
 
 any on the globe. And I say that, to be successful, 
 you must avail yourselves of all the knowledge 
 that appropriately belongs to this business. Now, 
 this science of which I speak is both experimental 
 and theoretical. The mere experimenter is blind. 
 He knows not what he does. He is like an empi- 
 rical physician, who kills a dozen patients while 
 he succeeds in saving one. He tries this and he 
 tries that, with no real knowledge to guide him, 
 and, of course, while he occasionally succeeds, in 
 most cases he fails. So the mere theorist lives in 
 the clouds, he swings in air, he has no anchorage. 
 But this science puts these together. It assumes 
 that God has built the world according to a wise 
 plan ; it finds out that plan by actual experiment ; 
 it rises to a comprehension of the laws which 
 govern nature in all her generative processes. It 
 associates you with God in your work. It tells 
 you to know his laws and follow them, and you 
 cannot fail of success ; and in doing this it makes 
 you most practical, because it has made you intel- 
 ligent in those things on which production depends. 
 I have spoken of this science more particularly 
 because it is intimately connected with these 
 great interests. But this is far from being the 
 only science which legitimately belongs to the 
 
14 
 
 agricultur.alist. There is botany, which will teach 
 you the form and organic structure of the plants 
 and trees you are to raise, and the flowers with 
 which your wives and daughters are to adorn your 
 dwellings. There is geology and mineralogy and 
 metallurgy, teaching you the character and struc- 
 ture of th'3 earth, and its minerals and metals — all 
 of which belong to you, as one. who should know 
 how the world is built, and what precious things 
 lie beneath and around you. There is natural 
 philosophy, the principles of which are available 
 in a hundred directions and for a great variety of 
 objects. There is civil engineering; since you 
 should know how to run your fences and construct 
 your ditches, drains, embankments and roads. 
 There is the law which controls the possession 
 and alienation of lands and property, and which 
 teaches you your rights and duties as a former and 
 aa American citizen. There is horticulture and 
 rural architecture, and landscape gardening — cul- 
 tivating your taste, and giving you the principles 
 which will enable you to lay out your walks and 
 plant your trees in such forms of beauty as will 
 make all hearts glad as they look upon the sur- 
 roundings of your home. Nor should it be deemed 
 aside from your profession to understand political 
 
15 
 
 economy, of which you constitute one of the great 
 national elements ; or the character of the markets 
 and productions of your own and other countries ; 
 or the history of improvements in agriculture and 
 arts ; and to all this I would add a knowledge of 
 mechanism, especially of those mechanical imple- 
 ments which belong to your business. There was 
 an old law in Wales, that no man should handle a 
 plow who could not make one. Now, this was 
 making a mechanic of a farmer. But the principle 
 is a good one, that he who is to use these tools 
 daily should understand their structure and their 
 apjDlication, and be able to use them so as to get 
 the greatest benefit from them. 
 
 I have thus briefly enumerated a part of those 
 sciences and arts which connect themselves directly 
 with agriculture. Some of these are essential to 
 the greatest success, while others belong to the lite- 
 rature of the profession ; but they all combine to 
 create the high and broad intelligence which should 
 characterize the independent American farmer. 
 
 I know that many of you will say this is a fine 
 ideal, but an ideal it is impossible to realize ; that 
 if the agriculturalists of our land should rise to 
 this degree of intelligence they would be the 
 most anomalous and extraordinary race of men in 
 
16 
 
 the world. Now, I will not say merely that every 
 man who means to do something should have a 
 high ideal before him, even though he should not 
 fully realize it ; that he should have a higher ideal 
 still for his own and his neighbors' children, and 
 help them to work up to it. The man who aims 
 at small results will not pass much beyond them ; 
 while the man of high aims may not fully attain 
 them all, yet will he rise far beyond the less 
 thoughtful and aspiring. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I propose to take high ground 
 to-day, and justify this position to your intelli- 
 gence. This is an age of progress ; the last fifty 
 years constitute the grandest cycle of progression 
 known to history. In this advance, this nation of 
 ours has stood and now stands in the front, and 
 she is to lead the world for generations to come. 
 We are an extraordinary people ; planted as no 
 other people ever was planted ; developed as no 
 other nation ever was developed ; possessed of 
 elements of power and progress such as no people 
 have possessed since the world was formed. We 
 have a Christianity that is living, active, untram- 
 meled by the state, and free to work out the 
 elevation of the masses ; we have institutions of 
 learning, and the means to give every child of this 
 
17 
 
 republic a good education ; we have free civil 
 institutions that train us to self-government and 
 stimulate us to self-development; we have a vast, 
 a rich territory, where for centuries to come we 
 shall have room to increase, and win independence 
 and all material comforts. We combine the best 
 energies of the most intelligent, the most active 
 nations of the world. The Scot and the Saxon, 
 the Irishman and the Frenchman, the Hollander 
 and the German are here to-day, mingling their 
 blood to form one product that shall illustrate all 
 their excellencies without their defects, and that 
 product is expressed by the proudest patent of 
 nobility on earth — the name of an American 
 citizen. We have already achieved what the old 
 world regards with wonder — we have subdued a 
 continent, net- worked it with canals and railroads ; 
 dotted it over with thriving towns and beautiful 
 villages; built large cities; reared, on a vast scale, 
 institutions of learning and religion ; spread our 
 commerce over every sea; and raised armies as 
 brave, as skillful, as large as those of the greatest 
 nations of the past. In science, in art, in lite- 
 rature, in jurisprudence, in statesmanship, we 
 hold no mean position ; and you, sir,* can testify 
 how proudly the genius of America, expressed 
 
 o ^ ♦ Col. Johnson. 
 
18 
 
 in the practical arts, lifted itself beside the 
 emblazoned Lion of England and the Lilies of 
 France. And now, with all these advantages in 
 actual possession, these triumphs already won, 
 will any one say it is unworthy the profoundest 
 intelligence and the clearest foresight to hold the 
 opinion that we are to be an extraordinary people ; 
 that we ought to, and, unless some wonderful catas- 
 trophe shall dwarf these vast energies, we shall 
 illustrate on a grand scale, more fully than the 
 world has ever before seen, the capacity of a whole 
 people for the most intelligent self-development 
 in all the elements that constitute the highest 
 style of manhood ? I say, then, that as a people 
 we should have a grand ideal ever before us. And 
 while there is to be an advance in all other 
 departments of life in this republic, will any one 
 dare utter the sentiment that there is one class, 
 and that representing interests the most vital to our 
 success, which is not to share in this progress, — 
 which is not to rise in intelligence and show itself 
 worthy of a high place among the most successful 
 workers for our national aggrandizement; that 
 the ftirmers of America are to lag behind in this 
 race, and not put forth the powers of their manhood 
 to do and to be all that shall make them worthy 
 
19 
 
 of these privileges. — fit to stand among the princes 
 of the earth ? 
 
 Gentlemen, this is no Utopian idea. The advance 
 which has been made in popular education justifies 
 me in asserting that many years will not pass 
 before we shall see it realized. It is but a few 
 centuries since, in old England, the ability to read 
 and write would, by the Common Law, be pleaded 
 in abatement of punishment for crime ; since the 
 privilege of clergy, of the clerks, the clerici^ the 
 men who could read and write, saved many a rogue 
 from the halter ; since stout-fisted barons and 
 lords had to make their marks instead of signing 
 their names. What a contrast does this age of 
 common schools and academies and colleges pre- 
 sent to that ! And what reason can any man assign 
 for the limitation of our progress to that which 
 we have already attained ? The power to reach 
 this advance is in your hands. The process is 
 simple. All solid progress begins with the young. 
 You bud or graft the young tree when you wish 
 to obtain the best fruit. The foundations of rapid 
 and permanent advancement can be laid most 
 successfully in the minds of the generation that 
 is now rising to the stage of action. Give the 
 young the culture which will fit them for their 
 
20 
 
 life work, and in a few years you will put a new 
 face on society. 
 
 Nor is this so difficult a work as some may 
 imagine. Allow me to make a supposition — to 
 suppose that within the next decade every village 
 or town should have appended to its central 
 school or academy a department in which some 
 of the branches most vital to your interests 
 should be taught ; that schools specially devoted 
 to instruction in agriculture and the mechanical 
 arts should be established in our State — not one 
 or two, but, if need be, a dozen, so as to bring the 
 advantages of this higher instruction home to your 
 doors ; that in every college there should be a 
 department where men could be most thoroughly 
 trained to occupy the post of instructors in these 
 schools. Suppose all this to be true, and it needs 
 no prophet to anticipate the magnificent result. 
 This you have the power to effect. You are the 
 strongest, the most independent power in the 
 State. When you are ready to combine for the 
 accomplishment of this great object, you will find 
 men of high intelligence prepared to second your 
 efforts and make them successful. When, mindful 
 of the importance and dignity of your profession — 
 no longer suffering the man whom you elect to 
 
21 
 
 represent you to neglect your best interests — 
 your voice shall be heard in our Legislature, as a 
 power not to be resisted, then we shall see a new 
 and nobler order of things rising around us. It 
 was one of the earliest lessons taught me by 
 parental lips, not to speak evil of dignities. And 
 though sometimes the impulse to do it is strong, 
 I do not intend to yield to it. But when I see a 
 legislature largely elected by the farmers and 
 mechanics of this State, spending months of tur- 
 bulent agitation on the question whether the city 
 of New York shall have another street railroad ; 
 when I see the rights and interests of a whole 
 State held in abeyance until they are shaped to 
 suit the narrow views and partisan feelings of the 
 advocates of a merely local project ; when I see 
 a great measure, involving the interests of the 
 farmers and mechanics of this State for genera- 
 tions to come, allowed but a few hours' debate ; 
 when I see a magnificent gift of a million acres of 
 land, designed for your benefit, limited for years 
 to come to a small section of the State, and that, 
 too, without consulting the views of those most 
 deeply interested in the education of the people, 
 in opposition to the expressed remonstrance of the 
 able and honored men who for so many years have 
 
. 22 
 
 guided the ciffiiirs of this association and done so 
 much for the agricultural interests of the State ; 
 then I feel that it is high time you began to exer- 
 cise the powers which of right belong to you, and 
 that you should have a voice in dictating the 
 character of those measures which affect so largely 
 the interests of your children. 
 
 I have dwelt longer on this j)oint than I at 
 first intended, but not so long as its importance 
 demands. The real dignity of your profession is 
 determined not by the fact that a few great men 
 here and there have belonged to it. It springs 
 from its relations to the best interests of society, 
 and from the character of the majority of those 
 engaged in it. I plead to-day, not for the sons of 
 the wealthy, but for those who as farmers and 
 mechanics are to live and serve the State by the 
 labor of their hands. I contend that they should 
 enjoy the highest advantages for mental culture, 
 for a training suitable to their business, for the 
 acquisition of an intelligence that shall make 
 their work most effective, while it enables them 
 to stand up in society among the foremost for real 
 mental power. The time, the age, the progress 
 made in other departments of life press the sub- 
 ject upon you ; and, when once your energies shall 
 
Zd 
 
 be earnestly enlisted, there is nothing desirable in 
 this direction which your combined efforts may 
 not accomplish. 
 
 Permit me, now, to say a few w^ords on another 
 subject which at the present time is awakening 
 deep interest among agriculturalists. I refer to 
 the question of association. The principle it 
 involves is one of vast power. It constitutes all 
 the difference between the rill and the river. The 
 rill is good in its place ; it does a good work ; it 
 fertilizes and blesses the land through which it 
 flows ; but, it cannot drive a mill or bear up a 
 steamboat. Associate it with a thousand other 
 rills and it creates the powder that impels immense 
 masses of machinery, or carries on its bosom the 
 commerce of a nation. One man in his place can 
 do a good work ; but there are some things which, 
 isolated, he cannot do ; and there are other things 
 which he can do only at a great cost of time and 
 labor. But combine his power with that of others, 
 and there is scarcely anything of great importance, 
 no work however grand, he may not accomplish. 
 Popular association belongs almost exclusively to 
 a free country. It cannot live and develop itself 
 in the arid soil of slavery. Despotism is a class 
 association, and oppresses the masses. Whenever 
 
• 24 
 
 association appears among these it fears it; it 
 throttles it, or allows it only a dwarfed and 
 sickly existence. The people must not know their 
 own power ; isolated they are weak ; associated 
 they are mightier than nobles and kings. In our 
 country, the principle of popular association is 
 fundamental to our success. It is the animating 
 principle of our government. It builds churches, 
 railroads, canals, banks, asylums. It establishes 
 schools and colleges. It forms societies for all pur- 
 poses beyond the reach of individuals. It has 
 organized and sustained these State and county 
 associations for the promotion of agriculture and 
 the mechanic arts. These immense gatherings 
 of the people; this deep and enthusiastic interest; 
 this splendid exhibition of the products of our 
 soil and the skill of our artificers, are due to this 
 principle. 
 
 Now, the point to which I wish to call your 
 attention is this : that the power of association is 
 in favor of those who constitute the great mass of 
 our farmers — the men of limited means, the men 
 who depend mainly upon their own labor and that 
 of their sons for the cultivation of their farms. 
 In respect to the division of estates, our policy is 
 peculiar. In Rome, during the palmiest days 
 
25 
 
 of the Republic, the amount of land owned by 
 individuals was limited. But when she began to 
 appropriate the wealth of other countries by her 
 conquests and extortions, then these laws were 
 abrogated. The result was that a few individuals 
 monopolized the whole country. Slavery followed 
 successful war, and, instead of the manly farmer, 
 like Cincinnatus or Cato, slaves became the 
 laborers. Agriculture declined ; the fairest por- 
 tions of Italy became depopulated, and the imperial 
 city depends for her supply of breadstuffs upon 
 the granaries of Egypt and Carthage. In Eng- 
 land, the whole kingdom is owned by a few nobles 
 and wealthy gentlemen. But, then, while vast 
 tracts of country are uncultivated, yet, the absence 
 of slavery, the principles of popular liberty and 
 the progress of intelligence have saved her from 
 the ruin which fell on Rome. Nowhere, probably, 
 is there a country where agriculture has been so 
 successfully systematized and reduced to a science 
 as in England. Whatever wealth and intelligence 
 could do, in the constitution of society, has been 
 done. In France, the opposite principle prevails. 
 Through the peculiar laws adopted since the 
 revolution of 1790, estates have been divided and 
 subdivided until, by the very minuteness of the 
 4 
 
26 
 
 division, progress in agriculture has been practi- 
 cally arrested, 
 
 In our own country, the abolition of laws of 
 entail prevents the perpetuation of great estates, 
 and the accumulating monoply of land in a few 
 families, for any long period. On the other hand, 
 the magnificence of our domain — the inheritance 
 of the people — prevents the minute subdivision of 
 estates, by putting it in the power of any man 
 with economy and enterprize to possess himself 
 of enough for his personal use. The result is, and 
 will be for generations to come, that, while there 
 are a few large estates, the mass of the land will 
 be held by the people, in quantities sufficient to 
 enable each owner, by diligence, economy and 
 skill, to maintain his family in honorable inde- 
 pendence, give his children a fair education and 
 start them successfully in life. 
 
 Now, the effect of association, when rightly 
 organized and with respect to legitimate objects, 
 is to place the man of limited means largely upon 
 an equality with the man of large means. The 
 wealth of the one enables him to purchase the 
 finest stock and the best instruments for his work. 
 He commands the best talent. He can systema- 
 tize his work, so as to get the largest return at the 
 
27 
 
 smallest cost. And, in all this he has greatly the 
 advantage. But association originates and puts 
 into the hands of the majority a power which 
 enables them to compete successfully with their 
 richer neighbors. Take for instance the manufac- 
 ture of cheese. The rich agriculturalist, with his 
 500 or 1,000 acres, and his 100 or 200 cows, by a 
 proper system, can make an article which will 
 bear a better price in market, and at a less cost to 
 himself, than his neighbor who owns only a dozen 
 cows. But when, by combining together, you 
 introduce the same system, you attain precisely 
 the same results. Your labor goes farther and 
 gives you a richer reward. 
 
 This principle is available in various directions. 
 I know of no reason why it may not apply to the 
 purchase and use of the best agricultural imple- 
 ments, the best mowers and reapers, and the best 
 threshing machines. In Wales, three centuries 
 ago, a dozen men associated to purchase and use a 
 single plow. In our frontier settlements, where 
 labor is scarce and the work to be done great, it 
 has been the custom for a whole neighborhood to 
 assist each other in clearing the land and gather- 
 ing in the harvest. We are far beyond the neces- 
 sity of combination for those objects. But the 
 
28 
 
 advance of agricultural science has produced other 
 necessities, which press heavily upon the small 
 farmer in his competition with those of large 
 means, and which he can only meet by association 
 with others. In the same way a company of 
 individuals can import the finest stock in the 
 world ; and thus, in a short time, the whole land 
 may enjoy the benefits of the best breeds of cattle 
 and horses. Hitherto, this has been done by ovCr 
 wealthy and enterprising agriculturalists ; but 
 there is no reason why every farmer may not pos- 
 sess all the material advantages he needs to give 
 him success. The power is in your hands ; you 
 have only to apply this principle among your- 
 selves, with your characteristic energy and wis- 
 dom, and the next twenty years will witness an 
 advance in your profession which otherwise a 
 century would not secure. 
 
 There is still one topic to which, in justice to 
 the great interests here represented, I wish to 
 allude before I close. We are in the midst of 
 war — a civil war — a war the most gigantic in its 
 dimensions and issues known to history; a war 
 remarkable for the immense armies engaged in it, 
 the number of battles it has fought, and the vast 
 extent of country over which it spreads ; more re- 
 
29 
 
 markable as a contest for the integrity of the Union, 
 for the supremacy of the Constitution ; a war, 
 not on the part of the majority to enslave, but to 
 maintain freedom and the supremacy of the ballot- 
 box over the bayonet, and to perpetuate institu- 
 tions essential to the full development of a true 
 manhood. Yet, while this conflict is in progress, 
 our villages, our towns and cities, exhibit an 
 tmexampled degree of prosperity; our industrial 
 pursuits, with the exception of a single branch 
 dependent on the cotton of the South, have 
 received no sensible check. With the character- 
 istic energy and power of adaptation of our people, 
 we have rapidly adjusted our pursuits to our 
 altered circumstances. We live, we grow, we 
 engage in new enterprises, as men instinct with 
 the vitality which true freedom inspires. And, 
 while this is true of most branches of industry, it 
 is specially true of that great interest which 
 underlies all the rest — the interest which creates 
 the material out of which all our wealth proceeds — 
 the great agricultural interest. Among no class 
 has there existed a more intense loyalty, a more 
 steady patriotism, than among the farmers of this 
 land. No class, in proportion to its numbers, has 
 sent a larger representation in the field. Yet, 
 
30 
 
 with all this diminution of their operative force, 
 not an acre less of land has been sown; the crops 
 have been harvested; the work of production to 
 supply our soldiers in the field, and our citizens 
 at home, has gone on with even increased vigor. 
 In this hour of trial the farmer has exhibited rare 
 energy ; he has sometimes sent forth into the field 
 of labor his patriotic daughters, to supply the place 
 of sons gone to the field of war ; he has called to 
 his aid, more than ever before, the unrivaled pro- 
 ductions of our mechanics to save labor. All over 
 the land, he is seen rising up with indomitable 
 energy to meet the exigencies of the great occasion. 
 Had this branch of industry been stricken down, 
 commerce would have languished; credit would 
 have been shaken ; our armies would have been 
 compelled to retire from the contest ; the South, 
 supplied by the forced labor of her slaves, would 
 have triumphed. But, instead of that, the ener- 
 gies of freemen, favored by a kind Providence, 
 have filled the land with the rich products of the 
 soil. Where, in all history, can you find another 
 nation that, in the midst of a gigantic civil war, 
 not only maintained all her agricultural interests, 
 but sent forth to other nations an immense sur- 
 plus; thus maintaining our national credit and 
 
ol 
 
 sustaining our finances, while, at the same time, 
 mindful of the dictates of humanity and religion, 
 we freely contributed shipload after shipload of 
 bread to feed the starving operatives of a govern- 
 ment that, instead of sympathizing with us in our 
 trials, has furnished the materials for a piratical 
 war upon our commerce, and put into the hands of 
 our enemies the most effective Aveapons to sweep 
 that commerce from the ocean. 
 
 We recognize, gratefully, that benign Providence 
 which, for the last three years, has made the earth 
 so productive, and brought the nations of Europe to 
 our doors for the food their own soil failed to 
 supply. But it is fit and right that we should 
 recognize and appreciate the energy and self-sac- 
 rifice of those who planted and reaped for us these 
 rich harvests. The American farmer has given 
 to the world the most illustrious examples of true 
 patriotism. When the news of the battles of 
 Lexington and Concord reached Gen. Putnam, he 
 was plowing his own acres. Leaving his plow in 
 the furrow, mounting his horse and bidding his 
 family a hasty adieu, he hastened to draw his 
 sword on Bunker Hill. He was the type of the 
 patriotism of the farmers of the revolution. Their 
 sons, inheriting their principles and their spirit. 
 
32 
 
 have proved themselves worthy of so iUustrious a 
 parentage. Self-reliant, independent, the monarchs 
 of their own domains, they are ready to use the 
 plow or the sword, in resisting the assaults of des- 
 pots from abroad or traitors at home, or in building 
 up a nation the freest and grandest in the world. 
 The State and the nation owe to them, far more 
 than to any other class, their material and intel- 
 lectual greatness. The children of the farmer, 
 instinct with original enterprise, are found in all 
 positions of power and influence. They supply 
 the waste of life 'and counteract the inherent 
 tendency to degeneracy in the large towns and 
 cities. Our ablest mechanics, lawyers, physicians, 
 divines ; our most illustrious statesmen ; our most 
 scientific teachers ; our merchants who have spread 
 our commerce round the world ; our pioneers whose 
 hands have leveled the grand old forests and made 
 the wilderness blossom ; our ablest generals — the 
 thunderbolts of war — in the great majority of 
 cases, were not reared in the luxury and excitement 
 of cities. They are the children of the soil ; they 
 breathed the pure air of heaven in their childhood ; 
 their youth was nurtured and grew strong for the 
 work of life amidst the storms and sunshine and 
 the invigorating labors of the country. With such 
 
a country, possessed by intelligent, religious, sturdy 
 freemen, with such institutions of religion and 
 science and government, who can doubt that a 
 glorious future is before us ? With a country, so 
 varied in climate, so rich in mineral treasures, so 
 productive in its soil ; with its valleys and hills 
 and mountains, its forests and prairies, its lakes 
 and rivers ; its shores, washed by two oceans ; 
 Avhere men of every temperament may develop 
 their energies, and where all things stimulate them 
 to progress ; dotted over with colleges and schools 
 and churches, and filled with all the elements of 
 social progress, where in this world, if not here, 
 should man assert his true nobility and rise to the 
 loftiest height of greatness, and send forth his 
 influence to civilize, evangelize and exalt the 
 world ? 
 
 I anticipate the future. I see this black cloud 
 of war uplift and roll away, and the sun shine 
 down upon a land impressed with the foot of 
 neither slave nor traitor. I see this young giant, 
 conscious of his strength, move forward in the 
 work of civilization and humanity with irresis- 
 tible power. And, as he advances, I see the hills 
 and valleys of the North, the prairies of the Great 
 Valley, the savannahs of the South, the slopes 
 
:}4 
 
 washed by the western Main, filled with an intel- 
 ligent, a religious, a rejoicing people — one in 
 language, one in sympathy, one in government — 
 the inheritors and possessors of the same institu- 
 tions, the noblest development of humanit}^ 
 
 IU.V 
 
* 
 
 LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 002 744 218 3 
 
 >•