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and they can. They can make it as productive as Western prairies or Southern valleys. There is no reason why the agriculture of New England should not rival that of Old England. There is no reason why Massachusetts should not feed her whole population. To make her truly independent she should do so. The responsibility rests upon the rising generation of farmers. Let us hope that they will cheerfully assume and nobly discharge it.

A few words, and but a few, upon one other topic, and I have done. You may call it, if you please, æsthetics, poetry, sentiment, by what name you will, but it is a subject upon which, if I had felt at liberty to follow my own inclinations, I should have filled my whole discourse. The young farmer will mistake his mission who makes that an end which should be but an incident or means. He may grow rich, may add barn to barn, and acre to acre, but if he neglects to wreathe the brow and soften the hands of labor with refinement and grace, his whole life will be a failure, and his example a wrong. Farming must be made attractive-and though its profitable exercise will tend to this, yet if, through the want of other attractions, it does not gain the right class of recruits, it will soon cease to yield profit. Is not our farm-life too rugged and harsh? Has it sufficiently recognized the amenities of life? Has it adequately encouraged social culture and delights? Has it not deemed exclusive devotion to labor as indispensable to success, frowned upon whatever interfered with unremitting toil, and grudged the expended mite which would have added to its hoards? Has it not looked upon the exercise of taste, the gratification of the eye, the love of ornament and beauty, as something foreign and out of place, and recognized nothing as desirable or useful which would not pay in dollars and cents? Such, at all events, has been the prevailing tendency—and in it is to be found the great secret of that aversion to farm-life which "has taken directly from our farming population its best elements-its quickest intelligence, its most stirring enterprise, its noblest and most ambitious natures." Let the young

farmer, then, begin life aright. Remembering the well established fact of physiology, "that hard labor, followed from day to day and year to year, absorbing every thought and every energy, has the direct tendency to depress the intellect, blunt the sensibilities, and animalize the man," let him be sure to cultivate the mental, moral and social nature. Let him feel that "his farm has higher uses for him than those of feeding his person or his purse." As he looks out upon his green meadows. and waving fields, as he plants the brown seed and gathers in the golden harvest, as he listens to the song of birds, the lowing of herds, the sweet hum of animated nature, as he sees the morning sun rise to gild and gladden the earth, and the evening shadows falling longer from the hills,

and the

"And then the moon, like to a silver bow.
New-bent in heaven,"

"Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light,"

coming out to rule and glorify the night, as in the spring-time he watches the ever-recurring but ever great mystery of nature, and when the winds of autumn wail in mournful cadence, muses upon the decay of nature, less mysterious but more solemn than its bursting life, let him remember that he is one of God's creatures, but created for glory and honor, entrusted with an earthly mission, but required hereafter to render an account of his stewardship. Let him think of his family and his home of his wife and children,-she, the choice of his youth and the solace of his manhood, who, in travail and pain has borne them to him, and they, who are to cheer and support his old age, and transmit and bring honor to his name. him make his and their home pleasant and cheerful. Without, let it be grateful to the sight, and delightful to the memory. Let there be the smooth, green sward upon which the shadows come and go, the clean-swept walk, the neat, white paling, the blooming and fragrant flowers, the climbing vine upon the

Let

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rustic porch, the graceful trees which shade from sun and shelter from the storm. Within, let it be the abode of domestic joys and cultivated life. Let it have some sacred retreat, where labor shall forget its irksome tasks,-where tired nature shall find sweet repose,-where everything shall charm the ear, delight the eye, or gratify the mind,-where shall be comfort, propriety and refinement,-not needing luxury or wealth, but only "that unbought grace" which neither gold can buy nor station give, and which may breathe alike around the rich man's stately mansion and the poor man's humble cottage. Living thus, with trust in Heaven, with nurturing care for the dear ones upon the earth, seeing God in nature, and recognizing labor and its rewards as but the means and not the end, the farmer will lead another and a higher life. Existence will have a new meaning. There will be for him new heavens and a new earth. Drought, and mildew, and blight may come, but hope and happiness are left. He walks through life, it may be amid storms, beneath clouds, surrounded by misfortunes, beset by carking cares, yet seeing forms of light in the gathering darkness, and drawing joy from out the very gloom.

"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common air, the sun, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."

Gentlemen of the Society-Farmers of Essex: In what pleasant places have your lines fallen to you-how goodly is your heritage. It is not alone an occupation, healthful, profitable and useful; it is not alone a home, pleasant, comfortable and refined; it is not alone an ancestry, the record of whose pious deeds and heroic lives is far dearer than would be the proudest escutcheon of heraldic vanity; it is not alone a County, populous aud rich, washed upon one side by the bounding waves of the Atlantic, traversed by beautiful and fertilizing streams, diversified all over with lake and forest, and swelling hills and teeming vales, with all the great material interests of

life-commerce, trade, manufactures, the arts, alike with agriculture, developed to full exercise within its borders; it is not alone a Commonwealth, rich in historic memories, as in the enjoyment of all that liberty under law can give to man, with institutions, unequaled in their beneficence, and which have wrought out a higher civilization than history ever before knew -it is not these alone. It is a Country, a Nation, our Dear Native Land-whose Government, whose Union, whose Constitution, whose Laws, are our only safeguard and defence,which brought us out of bondage, which protected our weakness, which nourished our strength, which made us a prosperous and mighty people,—and which, under God, can deliver and save us, and giving us renewed happiness and greatness, can enable us still further to benefit and bless mankind.

Fellow Citizens, that country, that nation, that government is in danger. Perhaps while I speak, the cannon of the enemy are thundering at the gates of its Capitol. Perhaps while you sit here, our brave soldiers are pouring out their blood in the long expected battle which is to determine between loyalty and treason, between falsehood and truth. To determine, did I say? No!

"For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won!"

Again they may win a temporary success. They may even storm and capture the city which the sacred name of Washington should protect from vandal hands, shot and shell may demolish its marble halls, fire and sword and pillage may destroy its archives and ornaments, but still the Nation will live on, still shall the Union endure. It was established in righteousness, it has arisen in honor, and the Almighty God is its guardian and guide.

Fellow-citizens, how paltry now seem all minor considerations, all views of individual, or local, or temporary good. It is our Country which calls. Religion, patriotism, pride, self

interest, all alike prompt to energy and effort. Let us each do our humble part. Let us give freely our means and our strength. Let us, if need be, beat our ploughshares into swords, and our pruning-hooks into spears. Let us toil and strive, and fight on to the end,-hoping, praying, believing, that in God's good time it will come, and that amid all these raging billows, and through the fierce storm and tempest, the Ark of our Safety will ride in triumph.

"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee-are all with thee."

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