Year: 1864

Agriculture is by common consent classed
as the first among the arts OF peace, but in
truth it is also the most efficient hand
maiden of war; and no nation, however
strong they may be on sea and land, can
long maintain either an offensive or deten-
sive warfare, or sustain an army in time OF
peace sufficient to insure the respect of
their neighbors, unless agriculture is made
the foundation of its prosperity, and the
majority of its capital is invested in this
primitive pursuit. 1t has been said that
Romulous founded his state on agriculture
and war, the former nOurishing and sustain
ing her normal growth, and the latter maxi
ing her mistress of the world. The same is
true of every great and powerful nation,
ancient and modern.


China, in which agriculture is carried to
the highest point of perfection, has existed
the longest of any nation on the globe,
though she has always been the prey of
foreign wars and internal dissensions. In
dia, whose wealth is on scale of which
western nations can have no conception,
and which has been said by the Edinburgh
Review to be the grave into which goes the
silver and gold of the world, and from
which it never returns, owes all her mate
rial prosperity to the products of her soil,
which she exchanges for the treasure of the
whole civilized world. Egypt, the mother
of civilization, symbolized herself as the
lotus springing from the mud of the Nile,
to the fertility of which alone her position
among the nations was to be attributed.


England, which we have come to look
upon as commercial and manufacturing
nation par excellence and which has been
designated as a nation of shop keepers,
would seem at first sight to constitute an
exception to the rule; but the rule has not
and never can have an exception. While
England is beyond all dispute the greatest
trading nation in the world, she is also the
greatest farmer, and statistics show that by
far the greatest bulk of her capital is to-day
invested in agriculture, and that the income
from the soil is just double that from her
commerce, manufactures, stock investments
and all other sources. Napoleon understood
full well that war must be quar- tered on ag-
riculture, and he established agricultural
schools throughout the empire, and thought
it time well spent to draw up the details OF
their management, even on the eve OF bat
ties.


But if agriculture has been our main re-
source in peace, it must be our dependence
above all things now in time of war. Our
commerce is well nigh driven from the
seas by the rebel cruisers; our mills cannot
obtain supply of cotton; the products OF
the gold mines we cannot keep in the
country, and we have one of the largest ar
mics the world has ever seen to feed and
clothe, no one knows how long, and ever
when peace returns we shall be obliged al
ways to maintain standing army to ''keeI
the peace" which will be so much with
drawn from the productive resources of th'
country. If we would carry on this wa
then to a successful issue and have tn,
. breath of life left in us at its close we mus
plow up two acres for one the coming sea-
son, and make two blades of grass grow
where one grew before.


But the United States is perhaps after al
the best illustration of the Importance o.
cherishing this universal and only true
source of wealth. With our three Thousand
miles of coast, and our tens of thousands o.
navigable rivers; with our cities of spindles
on every waterfall; with our gold mines in
California, and our iron, coal and copper
underlying the whole land, our real availa.
BILE wealth comes after all from the surface
soil in the shape of our immense surplus
produce. Agriculture furnishes the cottor
to keep our factories running and our mer-
chant fleet employed in its transportation


The great granary of the West keeps Ions
lines Of railroads and canals and an i'm
mense amount of tonnage employed in cary
ing its corn and flour to the doors of tn,
consumers. Even California is becoming
as famous for its agricultural products a.
for its gold, and without the former to sus
tain its rapidly increasing population, tht
latter would hardly be available, and il
would be impossible in the present disturb
ed state of our commerce to supply hel
from the Atlantic States, as at the period o.
her first settlement.