Connecticut western news., 1901-11-28

Villages appear. with sIniyns at the bellows, masors ca the wall car?S.. ters on the housetop. Churches rise ln honor of the Great Spirit whom the red men ignorantly worship. Steamers on the lake convey merchandise to he1 wharf and carry east the uncounteI bushels that have come to the market Bring hither wreaths of wheat and crowns of rye and let the mills and the machinery of barn and field unite their voices to celebrate the triumph, for the wilderness hath retreated and the blow hath conquered.
 Triumph of Husbandry.
 Within cur time the presidential cab met has added d secretaryship of agri- culture Societies are constantly being established for the education of the blow. Journals devoted to this depart ment are circulated through all the country. Farmers through such cul- ture have learned the attributes of soils and found out that almost every field has its peculiar preferences. Lands have their choice as to which product they will bear. Marshy low lands touched by the blow rise and wiring out their wet locks in the trench es. Islands born down on the coast Of Peru and Bolivia are transported to our fields and make our vegetation leap. Highways by this blow are changed fr2m boggy sloughs into roads like the Roman Appian way. Fields go through bloodless revolutions until there the farmhouse stands. In sum- mer honeysuckles chamber over the trellises. On one side there stands garden, which Is only farm condens- ed. On the other side there Is stretch of meadow land with thick grass, and as the wind breathes over 1t it looks like the deep green ocean waves. There goes brook, tarrying long in its wind ings, as if loath to leave the spot where the reeds sing, and the cattle stand at monday under the shadow of the weeping willows. In winter the sled comes through the cracking snow with huge logs from the woods, and the barn floor quakes under the thumpings of the fail or the deafening buzz of the thrashing machine Horses stand beneath mow poles bending under loads of hay and whinny to the well filled oat bins. Comfort laughs at the wind rattling the sashes and clicking the icicles from the caves.
 Parts of our country, under industri- ous tillage. have become an Eden or fruitfulness, in which religion stands as the tree of life and educational ad- vantages as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not one of them forbid den. We are ourselves surrounded by we'll cultured farms. They were work ed by your fathers, and perhaps your mothers helped spread the hay In the field. On their headstones are the names you bear. AS, when you were boys, In the sultry noon you sought for the harvest field with refreshments for your fathers and found them taking their noon spell sound asleep under the trees, so peacefully now they sleep in some country churchyard. No more fatigued Death has plowed for them the deep furrow of a grave.
 Agricultural Prosperity.
 Although most of us have nothing di- rectly to do with the tillage of the soil, yet in all our occupations we feel the effect of successful or blighted indus try. We must, In all our occupations, rejoice over the victories of the blow today. The earth was once cursed for mans sake, and occasionally the soil revenges itself on us by refusing a bountiful harvest. I suppose that but for sin the earth would be producing wheat and corn and sweet fruits as naturally as now 1t produces mullein stalks and Canada thistles. There is hardly hillock between the forests of Maine and the lagoons of Florida, be tween the peach orchards of New Jcr- sey and the pines of Oregon, that has not sometimes shown its natural and total depravity.
 Praise God for the great harvests that have been reaped this last yeari Some of them injured by drought CT insects or freshets were not as bounti- ful as usual, others far in excess of what have ever before been gathered, while higher prices will help make up for any decreased supply. Sure sign of agricultural prosperity we have Tn the fact that cattle and horses and sheep and swine and all farm animals have during the last two years increased in value. Twenty million swine slaugh- tered this last year. and yet so many hogs left. Enormous paying off of farm mortgages has spoiled the old speeches of the calamity howlers. If the ancients in their festivals present. ed their rejoicings before Ceres. the goddess of corn and tillage. shall we neglect to rejoice in the presence of the great God now? From Atlantic to Pa cific let the American nation celebrate the victories of the blow.
 I come next to speak of the conquests of the American hammer. It's iron arm has fought its way down from the be- ginning to the present. Under it's swing the city of Enoch rose, and the foundry of Tubal Cain resounded, and the ark fioated on the deluge At it's clang ancient temples spread their magnificence and chariots rushed out fit for the battle. Its iron fist smote the marble of Paros, and 1t rose In
 
 Pentelican mines until from them q Parthenon was reared whiter than a palace of ice and pure as an angels dream. Damascus and Jerusalem and Rome and Venice and Paris and Lon don and Philadelphia and New York and Washington are but the long pro tracted echoes of the hammer. Under the hammer everywhere dwellings have gone up. ornate and luxurious. Schoolhouses, lyceums, hospitals and asylums have added additional glory to the enterprise as we'll as the benef- cence of the American people. Vast public works have been constructed, bridges have been built over rivers and tunnels dug under mountains and churches of matchless beauty have gone up for him who had not where to lay his head, and the old theory is ex- ploded that because Christ was born in manager we must always worship him in a barn.