Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1874-11-06


at Montpelier, Oct. 2Ist, 1874.
A pleasant incident, recently occurring,
has revived and sent round The press the IA
nous reply Of the Vermonter, when asked
what they chiefly raised up in Vermont.
"As the soil is rather hard" said he, land
the climate rather cold, we have taken TO
raising men," 1t was II thoroughly charac-
teristic Vermont speech, good enough to be
the state motto, and too good to be put into
bad Latin for the purpose. IL is towering
boast; but the charm Of 1t is that It IS per-
fectly true. Speaking to the Dairymens
Association, and naturally disposed to lay on
the butter thick, 1 must yet make bold to
say that Vermont's most important products
are not butter and cheese. Speaking to the
representatives of all the industries of the
state, and valuing them as highly as any
man, | assert that not wool or horses, not
marble or slate are our staple productions
but men and women. will say more than
that, the main crop which we are expected,
and I might say are under sort Of contract
to supply TO the country is n crop Of men.
Not more truly does the Boston butter mar
ket look TO st. Albans and Richmond for
supplies, and the Brighton market to our
Vermont cattle-trains, than do the profess
sions and the great industrial and mercan-
tile enterprises of the country depend on
Vermont for men to carry them forward.
! have frequently heard from those who sit
at the focus of intelligence and catch the
whisperings that come up from all parts Of
the land, that in the present unsettling Of
confidence in public and private virtue, a
kind of parenthetcal reservation is always
made in favor of Vermont-"l except Yer
mont, of course,-she IS all right'-that
there is getting TO be a settled expectation
of stauncher morality, sOunder statesman
ship and more thorough-going character in
Vermont than in any other state Of the Union.
/ can imagine the Senate of the United
States, for example, standing aghast, ard
the best men in it almost ready 10 despair OF
the Republic if Vermont should cease to
send thlther the kind Of men she always has
sent, men among the foremost both for SEN
atorial ability and Senatorial virtue. And
thrice happy is that state which, after its
representatives have done the important
work which has been done in this chamber
to-day, can draw n long breath and say TO
itself whichever Of those men had been
selected, he would not have failed to keep
up the noble succession of the Phelpses, the
Collamers, the Foote's, whose Senatorial
careers have been so honorable to the
state.n
Let us accept the position which seems to
have been assigned to us by Providence and
accorded to us by public opinion. We could
not have nobler one. Let the richer soils
of the West supply the granaries of the
world let tho workshops of more populou'
states outdo us in manufactures; let the
great seaboard cities control commerce; it
shall content us to supply what has always
been and will always be the worlds creates
need-men. vermont the mother OF men
no state in the world bears prouder mot
to than that. And yet, BIO it remembered
to bear it worthily involves more though
and exertion than would suffice to make
state rich and powerful. If it is our mission
to train great men and good women for tn
worlds needs, then it is our mission to stud
profoundly the worlds true needs and how
to meet them. Amid the rapid changes 60
ing on in all the relations of life, how to up
propriate every real improvement and still
to keep the essential and unalterable condi
tions of well-being unaffected by any out
ward changes; how to embellish life with
out enervating; how to diversity withou
dssipating IL; how to get rid of unnecessar
hardship and yet keep the muscle and plucl
which nothing but hardship coniersi In