ton and Jefferson and Adams were farmers, Van Buren is a farmer; and last, not least, he who has been so lately elevated to the highest station in the gift of a free people, and whose sudden departure to the world of spirits has clothed our nation with sackcloth, was styled by way of eminence, the farmer of North Bend.

There is not much danger, gentlemen, that agriculture itself will ever become unfashionable, however unskilfully it may be conducted, and whatever grounds there may be to despise it; so long as it is fashionable to eat, it will be fashionable to till the soil. Agriculture becoming unfashionable! you might as well suppose that clothing amidst the storms of winter, would become unfashionable. Fashion, however, has great power with young men, and if the employment is not fashionable among that class, the course which we have suggested will tend to remove this prejudice from their minds. It will tend to make the farming community, what their independent position qualifies them to be, the true aristocracy of the land. Why should they not be? There are few of the so called aristocracy of our cities, who can go back three generations without finding their fathers following the plough in some obscure nook in the mountains. We have no privileged class, unless it be the farmer. "He whom nature at his birth endowed with noble qualities, tho' an Ethiop and a slave, is nobly born.'

Dismiss, then, from your minds the idea that agriculture is an employment beneath your faculties, and exert yourselves to elevate it in the estimation of the community. By the best informed, the truly great minds, it has never been so regarded. It is among those who are not certain of the estimation in which they are held, and who are striving to elevate themselves from the lowest plebeian to the patrician ranks, that the feelings which are here discountenanced are most commonly indulged. Let it attain to such perfection and permanency, that whoever cherishes such feelings, shall afford the most convincing evidence of a weak mind, a small brain, a retreating fore head, an ignoble origin.

So far is agriculture from being an undesirable profes

sion, that there are many considerations, growing out of the employment itself, which should influence men of all classes and professions to carry out the plan which I have so imperfectly sketched, and which I believe to be the only effectual means of constant progress and permanent improvement in the art. There are many peculiarities in this employment which render it upon the whole the most desirable of any other.*

It is the most independent of all professions. The possession of a good farm enables the farmer to obtain nearly all that is absolutely essential to his existence and comfort. In professional life, there is a constant dependence upon the caprice of others. We are obliged to consult their prejudices, to bear with their indignities, submit to self-denial, and be harrassed with cares and anxieties, of which the farmer has not the most distant idea. He is lord of the soil, his own master, and is under no temptation to descend to anything mean or unworthy of a man. The fluctuations of business affect him far less than most other classes, and the rewards of his toils, although they come slow, are always sure, so long as the rains and the sunshine are granted him his store-house is sure to be filled.

Being, as it were, isolated and guarded from the vicissitudes of fortune and of favor, his situation is peculiarly favorable for cultivating the virtues of patriotism. The hills where he feeds his flocks, the fields where he sows his seeds and gathers his harvests, attach him to his country. They are associated with all his trials and all his joys, and hence, if these fields are invaded, his arm is the first and the strongest to repel and punish the invader.

The situation and employment of a farmer are best fitted to cherish and strengthen the social affections. The sources of his pleasures are in his own family, and by his own fire-side. His daily task accomplished, he gathers around the blazing hearth, amid bright faces, and buoyant spirits, to indulge in the sweets of domestic inter

* See Addresses by the Rev. Henry Colman before the Agricultural and Hor ticultural Societies of New Haven County, 1840.

course, unalloyed by care or apprehensions of the future. Ambition, and envy, and discontent, find no sympathy there the waves of anxious busy life, in crowded cities, break not in upon his security. He lays himself down to rest, contented and happy; no distressing dreams disturb his slumbers; no visions of falling stocks and broken banks, or disappointed hopes, prey upon his nerves, and lead him to wish for the morning, but it is as true now as it was in the days of the Wise Man, "the sleep of the labouring man is sweet. His friends are few, and hence he takes a deeper interest in the affairs of his neighbors All meet on common ground; artificial distinctions, which give rise to so much alienation and selfishness where different grades are mingled together, are un known. Hence, there arises, that natural interchange of kind offices and good wishes which contribute powerfully to strengthen the social relations, and to develope the humane and benevolent affections.

Finally, the condition and employment of the farmer are most favorable for cultivating the moral sentiments and religious affections. He is removed in a great measure from the temptations which are incident to other branches of industry; away from crowded streets, and artificial excitements, there is the best opportunity for sober reflection. The motives for dishonesty, for fraud and deception, are much less powerful, and fewer occasions present themselves for vicious indulgences. The hope of sudden affluence, which stimulates the merchant, the manufacturer, and the speculator, and which excites the selfish, ambitious propensities, has little power to weaken the moral sentiments of the farmer. There is, moreover, in labor itself, a tendency to guard the mind. from the assaults of vice. An indolent people are always a vicious and an irreligious people.

"All is the gift of industry, whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life

Delightful. Pensive winter, cheered by him,
Sits at the social fire, and happy, hears
The excluded tempest idly rave along.

His hardened fingers deck the gaudy spring,
Without him Summer were an arid waste,

Nor to the Autumnal months could thus transmit

Those full, mature, immeasurable stores,

That, waving round, recall my wandering song."

There is little time for idleness, the parent of many vices. But when toil ceases, necessary rest must succeed. Hence, there is much sound philosophy as well as practical wisdom in the practice of sending boys from our cities to engage in manual labor, in consequence of the influence it exerts upon their vicious propensities.

It has been thought, I know, that labor is a curse; but when man was doomed to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, fallen as he was, it became the greatest blessing. Such a requisition did not arise from the idea of retribution, but from that of mercy. It furnishes one of the brightest assurances, that the Deity, tho' justly incensed, has not given up our race to the hopeless consequences which disobedience might have incurred, for the effect of labor is to prepare the mind for the reception of moral and religious truth. This is fully confirmed by experience. Who ever heard of riots and mobs among farmers. Farming communities are uniformly more virtuous and more religious than those whose occupation leads them into scenes of greater temptation.

Setting aside, then, all other considerations of a pecuniary and temporal nature, it is my settled conviction that if any of your sons, after having acquired a thorough agricultural education, were to settle down to the tilling of the soil, they would be much more likely to lead happy and honest lives, and go to heaven at last, than if they were to engage in the strifes of political, professional, or mercantile pursuits, and obtained all the wealth which their ambition could desire.

The employment of the farmer seems best fitted to our present condition, and tends, more directly than any other, to prepare men for that future condition whither all of us, whether we will or no, are so rapidly hastening.

There are but two objections to the plan here suggested; the first is, the cost of such an education; the second, the time required to obtain it. We may pay too

high a price for the article which we purchase. Will the results, in all probability justify the undertaking? How much would such an education cost? I have not time here to go into particulars, but will pledge myself to show, that on the supposition that our young men spend four years of time, it shall not cost them over six hundred dollars; one half of which expense they may defray by teaching school during the winter ; and is there a young man in this county or in New England who cannot obtain that amount? If he cannot, he has not the talent and industry which are needed to engage in an enterprize like this. But if all cannot do it, there are multitudes that can, and would, if the opportunity were furnished, and the countenance and support of the community were given. There is no necessity that any young man should be deprived of such an education on the ground of expense. But how can our young men spend the time? "Time is money," but in estimating its value, we must take into account the whole of life; is it certain that four years of time thus spent would be lost? is it not probable that at the age of forty the man would be possessed of more wealth, more influence and more character than if his time and money were devoted to the cultivation of the soil without such an education. Three or four years spent in the cultivation of the mind and the heart, may be of more value than all the money which a life of toil would secure, without such discipline. Knowledge is power," and as we cannot live our lives but once, if the seed time is neglected, we cannot roll back the wheels of time, but must reap a scanty harvest in old age. "He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." Let it be remembered that a good education is an investment for life, yielding a constantly increasing income, which nothing can take away, which no fluctuations in human society can change or destroy.*

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Is it not desirable, then, that efforts should be made to

* See Buel's Cultivator, vol. iv. p. 70.