Litchfield enquirer., 1873-09-25

been driven at express speed. Like the
 chariot of fire in ancient story. the flame
 that illuminated the path of it's progress
 has been generated by the rapid reyoln-
 ton of its own wheels Look at what if
 has achieved in the way of subjugating
 and directing physical forces and shaping
 forms. Its inventions are the marvel 0i the world. It would seem that the American mechanics and machinist never slept. The opposition of nature has been so gigantic
 that nothing less than incessant applica- tiOn to-day could clear the path for to- morrow. Under such conditions no won der that the brain force of the nation has
 been in the aggregate astonishingly de veloped.
 The fact is, then, that wide and deep
 intellectual development, independent of
 of letters, has been going on for the last
 fifty years of the nations life. American
 literature by no means represents Ameri-
 can thought. Over against Whittier swith
 his five volumes of poetry and Emerson with his twelve volumes of prose, put
 the Manchester print works and the cot
 tories as truly as the printed pages must
 be taken into the account when yOutry to
 estimate American thought. The fact is 1
 has been warm with proyocations to think,
 and the very roots of our population have
 felt the stirrings of a new sap and thrilled
 in the mire and mold of their destiny.
 The branch of industry that has shared l least in this general mental activity is be- yOnd doubt the agricultural. Under the old method of farming there was little ne- cesity or provocation to think. It was a 1 life and pursuit in which the hand played the most important part and the brain i was left in the background, In that or 1 der horticulture, arborculture, foricul- | ture, scientific breeding of the domestic animals. and those other branches of az riculture that call for ingenuity and en- i ferprise and result in culture were nearly l unknown. Farming was only dill rou- tine of planting potatoes and corn, hoeing and having, and reaping and gathering the crops in the autumn. This, with the hauling of the winters wood and repair ing fences, composed the annual round. Now in all this the brain played no part, The3 hands did it all, and were able to do 1t all There was no recreation, no cul- r ture; and almost no reward. The arms and legs did all the work, and got all the profit. The mind did nothing, and gain ed nothing, but rnsted in ignoble disuse.
 From such life every active-minded young man naturally broke away. It was a life in which labor was only a kind of base physical teil There was. no spring. no elasticity to it. There was no chance to rise, or grow. The great, wide, stir ring, progressive world was only few miles away, with it's splendid opportuni- ties to amass and achieve. Even it's low CT grades of industries were instructive and expansive. How could he stay on the ancestral patch, and be content. He could not, and claim he had no right to remain. No industry is worthy young mans following, unless it ministers to the higher and diyiner side of his nature. A pursuit that merely tasks the body and supports the body is base, and should De despised. This was one cause why farm- ing was despised by the youth of the land It was mere manual toil. In it the hand was of higher use than the head Muscle was absolutely worth more than brain A man with one idea was as valuable as he whose mind was quick with suggestion A fool of Webster's size was as good man on the farm as Webster. @
 Now, I lay it down as law that all forms of human industry are graded in valne tothe individual and society as they are or are not connected with mans high CT faculties. All labor worth the doing is educative and expansive. The count less industries of the earth make the earth a school, and toilers are only scholars. The shop and field, the decks of ships, and even the damp and dripping mine, are only different colleges in that great university where the human faculties are being trained. To quicken thought, to widen the field of investigation, to substi- ute the coarser with finer culture, to enlarge knowledge that the heart may be enlarged, to banish the curse of poverty, by which mems faculties are cramped and many pushed into crime, these are the re- suits that make industry of 4alue to man.
 These, regret to say, were precisely the results that the old style of farming in this country did not produce. In it ambition found no opportunity and enter prise, no encouragement. It looked up on chemistry with contempt, and he who considered success in breeding anything more than the result of mere luck was re- garded as a visionary. It disregarded en- tirely the value of location in it's relation to markets, and continued to raise pota- toes and corn and rye at 20 per cent. loss when the same soil and labor might have produced early vegetables, fruits and flowers at 100 per cent. profit. Worse than all it put itself in opposition to inn proyemeut It hugged it's own ignorance as wisdom, and bigotedly resisted the in trodnction of anything new i1 theory or practice. The rotation of crops, the rela tive adaptation of different manures to different soils, the substitution of ma chine for manual labor, the improvement of native stock by importation of foreign blood-these and similar changes 1t fierce 1y opposed and made the butt of its anath- emas and vulgar jokes While the me chanics. of the nation were -perfecting themselves in their several trades, and the machinists inventing new tools, and the merchants of the nation betting the globe with their ships, and the manufacturers shores. and every other form of industry with it's face all aglow with emulation, the New England farmer continued to plod on in the path which led him year by year into deeper discontent and poverty. In this way ambition and enterprise, wealth and, culture were alienated from the soil to which they should be most warmly at- # tached, and in the cultivation of which whatever is best in mans mind and heart can find and should find it's highest exer- else and most enduring pleasure. a If you should tell me the picture is too darkly drawn and somherly shaded, and point me to this audience and these grounds, swarming as they do with the finest anlnal, vegetable and instrumental resulte of New England thought as dis proving the picture, I reply first that here are grouped the achievements not of the old but of the new order of agriculture, which has won recognition and support not by the help of the assistantance but in spite of the opposition of the average farmer as he existed twenty years ago; ; and secondly \ should ask you to look be- yond these grounds to the country itself mot at the farmers that are here, but at the farmers who are not here-and see if Emy words are not true. This is q New England Fair, but New England is not here. She is represented here to-day by the few, not the many by the intelligent and prosperous and lsenterprising, not by the average farmer. Here and there one