disease and deformity. The country admits of a happy medium-a tranquil, middle life, where there is an abundance for the support of physical nature-thought enough for the maturity of mental powers, and associations that lift the soul heavenward "O he can speak the vigorous joys of health- The temperate evening falls serene and kind." On the other hand, all things in the city are in extremeswealth and poverty, luxury and starvation, refinement and barbarian degradation, education that sharpens the wit, and idiotic stupidity that makes man the easy prey of his fellow, who has no more love for his kind than though he had been born of brutes and suckled by she-wolves. On one side religion ends in bigotry, and on the other liberality of opinion in Atheism. Trades, callings, classes, war upon each other, and life is like a great amphitheatre filled with savage beasts and warring men. In body and mind and spirit the equilibrium of humanity is lost, and we are like the waves in a tempest. The physical result is given in the annual vital returns of the State. The average duration of life in Boston is twenty years, and but for the influx from the country its streets would in a few years be deserted, and its houses tenantless. In the country the average of life is more than twice as long. So, we compare the classes and occupations. The life of the farmer is more than sixty years, of shoemakers and ordinary mechanics from forty to fifty years, and of printers, editors, operatives in factories, from thirty to thirty-five years. And here, mark you, that physical inferiority is invariably and quickly followed by mental inferiority. The mind is the measure of the man, it is true; but the body as well represents the character of the mind as the tenement will the tenant who occupies; hence we find that in all powerful nations, physical culture has been the foundation of education. The golden age of Greek history was when the youth were trained to manly sports and exercises. Philosophy, poetry, oratory, music and sculpture followed and flourished with the games to which the youth were invited. The Romans adopted the Greek system, and with the same success. Physical health is the chief corner stone of mental power and moral greatness, and that is the product of the farm as much as are sheep and oxen. Having considered the influence of agriculture upon physical man individually, let us look a moment to its relations to man in society-to civilization and to government. THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO CIVILIZATION. Man's progress in civilization has been and must be through the paths of agriculture; that comes first, as the foundation of society. Manufactures which are a modification of the products of the soil, and commerce which is a distribution or exchange of them, must, in the necessity of the case, be secondary. Land is the chief creative element in society, and arts and trades, navigation and science, will move in unison with agriculture. The most obvious distinction between the savage and civilized man, is in the respective relations in which they stand to the soil. The one has no fixed abode; and as long as he has none he makes no progress; the other attaches himself to a spot which he calls home. This he loves from the associations of the past; it is the place where his fathers lived and died and were buried, or which he has obtained by his own toils. He values it too for the present; it is the home of his wife-it was the birthplace of his children-it is the most loved spot of earth; the stars sparkle brighter above it in the distant spheres, the flowers are more beautiful and fragrant from its soil, the rains are more grateful to its fields, and the fruits sweeter to the taste. Around the house, the barn, the trees, the hills, the running brooks, and the very rocks, pleasant memories and holy affections cluster; and he loves to adorn and beautify and improve it. The very first steps of improve ment, therefore, for an individual or a tribe, is to cease wandering and become rooted to the earth. As soon as a tribe fixes itself with a determination to draw support from the soil, it lays aside its tents and builds substantial dwellings; and here begins architecture and the many arts needed in building—the cutting of timber, the making of bricks, or the hewing of stones-masonry, carpentry, painting, glass making and the countless branches of industry involved in furnishing and beautifying a residence. Again, before agriculture can progress far, the husbandman must have tools, and to this end the mines must be worked, and the founder and the smith be enlisted; many trades called into existence, and finally, as we see in our day, the highest mechanical ingenuity be pressed into the service of the farmer. Commerce, in the progress of civilization, necessarily grows out of agriculture. A farming community will produce more than they need for cousumption, and the surplus will be sent to less favored localities or to sections and countries whose soil and climate do not admit of such productions. Hence comes commerce, the first born child of agriculture, with the building of ships for the rivers, lakes and oceans-the cutting of canals, and the running of railways over valleys and through mountains for transportation; and then towns and cities spring up full of warehouses, the product of the farm house. And now the farmer and the merchant find it unprofitable and impossible, while actually engaged in other pursuits, to make their own. clothes, hats, shoes, and the thousand articles of utility and luxury that become elements of daily life, and manufactures spring into existence. The hand mills, the hand looms, and the spinning wheels by the kitchen fires, give place to great milling establishments and the cotton and woolen factories moved by water or steam; and again, as with the merchant and trader, the manufacturer and operatives are changed from producers to consumers, and the surplus is poured into the lap of commerce, and in the exchange and distribution wealth accumulates, industry is encouraged, knowledge increased, and humanity improved. Thus, all the material surroundings of civilization-all that distinguishes our enlightened community from a savage state, are directly the outgrowth of the soilspringing from agriculture, as much as does the farmer's crop that is gathered into the cellar or barn. THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO GOVERNMENT. Now, let us consider another relation of agriculture to society, in government. The first idea of law is suggested by property; and the first property to be protected by law is in land. To the savage who lives by hunting and fishing, pursuing his game at will over vast territories in common with his wild brethren, the ground is no representative of value. He derives nothing from it, and he claims ownership in it, no more than he does in the sunlight, air or waters. It is when he makes to himself a home, and sets apart a portion of the footstool for himself and his family, baptising it with the sweat of his brow, and sanctifying it with his toil; it is when he has learned to plant it in the spring, and watch the growth of its products in the summer, and gather the harvests in autumn, and enjoy them in winter, that he desires the uninterrupted possession for himself and his children, and sees the value of law to secure the permanent enjoyment of his own-to prevent trespass and thefts, to decide questions of boundaries, and to regulate the relations arising out of the new order of things. But not only does agriculture inevitably suggest the idea of law, but it favors the highest, freest and most permanent forms of government—always and ever being the enemy of despotism where the husbandman tills his own acres. What of government there is in a savage state, is despotic. One man by superior strength, courage or wisdom, becomes the absolute chief of his tribe. So at the other extreme, we find the tendency in manufacturing and mercantile States, is to aristocracy and monarchy. Great wealth accumulates in the hands of the few; they enjoy learning and luxuries and grow proud, wishing to domineer over the masses whom they employ and whose labors they direct. The minority seeks to rule, and often does tyrannize over the majority. But in an agricultural community the doctrine of equality is better exemplified than in any other social condition. The gains of the farmer are slow and sure; he has not enormous wealth to puff him up, and he never can be the victim of abject poverty, which often depresses other classes; his position gives him opportunities for a healthy education, and his absence from the excitements of life allow reflection and mature thought, fitting for self-government. The farmer is independent of all sects in religion, and all parties in politics; he relies on none of them for bread in this life or for hope in another. His own right hand sustains him under the blessing of God, and to God he owes everything; but to gambling politicians and bigoted and proud-souled sectarians he owes nothing. If there is any man who, in such a country as this, is sovereign, independent, lord of himself and his own, it is the farmer who cultivates his own unmortgaged fields, drives his own oxen, owing no man anything. "Let sailors sing of the windy deep, But in my heart this toast I'll keep- When first the rose in robe of green Unfolds its crimson lining, And round his cottage porch is secu The honeysuckle twining; When banks of bloom their sweetness yield To bees that gather honey, He drives his team across the field, Where skies are soft and sunny. The blackbird clucks behind the plough, The gray old barn doors unfold His ample store in measure, More rich than heaps of hoarded gold, |