The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-10-20

point of human interest, and for illustra
lions can draw almost at random upon an
chapter Of human history. Had you select
ed, to fill up this part ofyour programme, n,
expert in your craft, you might reasonabl
have expected from him an instructive dis
sertation upon the analysis of the variou
soils throughout the limits of Hartford
county, the description of crops to which
they are each adapted, the kind of fertili
ger they severully require, together will
some observations upon the sociable anC
festive potato bug. From the fact tina
you have not made such selection on thi
occasion, it may be inferred that you con
slider such matters of detail more appro
pirate for discussion at the meetings o
your local farmers clubs, and that you arr
prepared to expect at the annual meetings
OF your society more general treatment
OF the subject in its various relations Ia
the welfare of society at large.
1t is with this view that l have called
your attention to that most interesting
period of ancient history which so signally
illustrates the necessary and intimate con-
nection, existing now as it existed then
between the proper cultivation of the soil
and national prosperity.
Government, institutions, laws, Ian
guages, even religions change, but human
nature, modified by circumstances, remains
essentially the same. 1t is true, we are not
Romans, nor the descendants of Romans.
On the contrary, we are sprung from those
same barbarians who rushed from the
woods of Germany upon the rotten fabric
OF Roman civilization and shattered it into
fragments. We may Or may not be proud
OF our ancestors, / for one am not ashamed
of my lineage, though it should connect
me with Alaric, Genseric or Attila. They
at least played the part of men in their
day and generation, according to the best
lights they had. They were the pioneer
reformers, rude and remorseless iconoclasts
though they were, of the most needful, the
most wholesome and the most stupendous
revolution in all history. They may have
practiced the ridiculous rites of heather
superstition, but they ut least worshipped
with the serious energy of fervid faith,
while the classic mythology of effete Rome
had degenerated into subtle hypocrisy or
scofting atheism, or gloomy persecution,
Their respect for woman may have been
into mysterious reverence or, if
you please, silly intatuation, but even that
was incomparably preferable to the sorry
spectacle of degraded womanhood, which
became the jest and by-word of the Roman
satirists. Paintings they despised, statues
they smashed, libraries they burned, tenn
pies they demolished. Towns and town
life they abominated. They loved to spear
the wild boar, and gloried in the free range
of trackless forests. They were hunters,
shepherds and herdsmen, and what is more
to our present purpose, they were a race
possessed OF the true agricultural instinct,
practicing rude method of tllage, and
with a constantly improving inclination
and capacity for its DEVELOPMENT.
The student of the law of real property
Mt this day deems his research incomplete
until he has traced the sources of that law
through the feudal system back to the al
lotments of land for agricultural purposes
by the military chieftains of tie German
tribes.
The whole story of the Eruption of
The Northern hordes and their settlement
upon the conquered provinces of the Ro-
man Empire, may be summed up as the
ong and finally successful struggle of
rural people, half pastoral, half agricul-
.ural, to throw off their primitive nomadic
habit and acquire permanent settlement
upon the soil.
1t is this agricultural instinct, tending
% become u destiny, which principally
our iuddy ancestors Of the
German forests from the red men who once
hunted over these grounds, and whose
'pear-heads and arrow-h heads of flint you
nay occasionally dig up. Between the
German as described by Tacitus and the
North American Indians as they were
ound by the Colonists, there appear many
rats in common; but the Indians, as a
ace, prefer to die, and are dying rather
han settle down into the peaceful pursuit |
If agriculture, while the lent Germans
esolved to conquer or die in the effort to |
Idopt it. 1t is an extraordinary fact that a |
people who, like the Indians, had actually |
Begun to make some progress in this art, a |
people, moreover, to whom, as is generally |
we are indebted for our Indian |
orn, although the Chinese claim this dis |
overy, as in fact they do every other dis |
overy of any value) should have refused |
With such obstinate determination to &C. |
ept agriculture as their Legitimate bust
ess, even when offered them as the only |
lternative of determination.
1t must of course he understood that |
his observation is limited to those abort |
ines of our country of genuine and I'M
mixed breed, who have preserved the pure |
ype of North American Indians.
These examples may seem in measure
o illustrate the controlling influence of
griculture upon national character and |
testiny. We have the testimony OF Rome
hat the highest civilization, the brightest |
the most consummate iurispru-
ence and tine most perfect military science
annot afford the degradation of agricul- |
ure, and that its decline is inevitably fol- |
owed by national disgrace and ruin. In |
he history Of the destined conquerors of |
rome, and especially of that Ami Clio Saxon
ace from whom we are more Immediately |
lecended, we see rude and barbarous |
'eople, under a variety of causes, among /
vhich,n to the influence of Christianity,
hat of constantly progressing develop
nent Of agriculture is the most character
site and potential, laying deep founda-
ions in the fendal system of code of
avs which finally supplants the jurispru-
lence of Rome; in the institution of
Rivalry protesting love, honor, and reli-
ZION with romantic extravaganza which
tones down into the character
# the modern gentleman; in the erection
# picturesque castles and Gothic cathe-
trails, originating new and superb styles of
in their passion for personal |
liberty, always sternly guarded by repre-
entative assemblages, celebrating systems
# free constitutional government at the |
,rofuse cost of blood; and finally evolving
hat wondrous constellation of contedera- |
ed Republics, the mechanism of whose
complete movements is modelled upon the |
lynamics of the celestial spheres, whose
ymbol is our own starry flag, and whose |