AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURE.

Agriculture is the most certain source of strength, wealth, and independence. Commerce flourishes by circumstances precarious, contingent, transitory, almost as liable to change as the winds and waves that waft it to our shores. She may well l>c termed the younger sister, for, in all emergencies, she looks to agriculture, both for defence and for supply.—Cotton.

The first three men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession and turned builder.—Cowley.

In ancient times, the sacred plough employed the kings, and awful fathers of mankind.—

Thomson.

In the age of acorns, antecedent to Ceres and the royal ploughman Triptolemus, a single barley-corn had been of more value to mankind than all the diamonds that glowed in the mines of India.—//. Brooke.

He who would look with contempt upon thc^ fanner's pursuit is not worthy the name of a man.—Beecher.

Trade increases the wealth and glory of a country ; but its real strength and stamina arc to be looked for ainong the cultivators of the \ant3i.-~Lord Chatham,

He that sows his grain upon marble will have many a hungry belly before his harvest.—

Arbuthnot.

In a moral point of view, the life of the agriculturist is the most pure and holy of any class of men; pure, because it is the most healthful, and vice can hardly find time to contaminate it; and holy, because it brings the Deity perpetually before his view, giving him thereby the most exalted notions of supreme power, and the most fascinating and endearing view of moral benignity.—

LorH John RumeU.

The farmers are the founders of civilization.
Daniel Webster.


And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, Would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.—Swift.

Command large fields, but cultivate small cnes.— Vinjil,

The frost is God's plough, which he drives

through every inch of ground in the world,

opening each clod, and pulverizing the whole.—

Fuller.

" Agriculture, for an honorable and high- minded man," says Xenophon, "is the best of all occupations and arts by which men procure the means of living."—Alcott.