VDD11ESS 
 
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 OF BALTIMORE, MD.. 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Oxford Agricultural Society, 
 
 On May, October 111, 1 
 
 
 OXFORD, L'A.: 
 
 PRESS," HOOK, CARD AM) JOH PRINTER. 
 
 ISTd. 
 
 QJ. ' 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 mSfcil® Mk i 
 
 OF BALTIMORE, MD„ 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Oxford Agricultural Society, 
 
 On Friday, October 7th, 1810. 
 
 ] 
 
 OXFORD, PA. : 
 
 PRESS," BOOK, CARD AND JOB PRINTER. 
 
 1870. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Oxford, Fa., October L5'h, 1870. 
 At the meeting of the Board of Managers of the Oxford Agri- 
 cultural Society, oa the 12th inst., a resolution of thanks to Hon. 
 Charles E. Phelps, for his very able and highly practical address at 
 the First Annual Exhibition of the Society, on the 7th, was unanimously 
 adapted, and the Secretary was instructed to request a copy for publi- 
 cation. From (he minutes. 
 
 //. L. BRINTON, Cor. Sec'u 
 
 BALTIMORE, Md., October 18th, 1870. 
 Rev. John M. Dickey, I). 1).. 
 
 Dear Sir : Your esteemed favor of the 17th instant, is received, en- 
 closing a copy of Resolutions of the Board of Managers of (be ( )xford 
 Agricultural Society. 
 
 I beg that you will take occasion to assure the Board of my very 
 
 high appreciation of the compliment contained in their vote of thanks 
 
 and request of a copy of the address delivered on the 7th inst., for 
 
 publication, and to inform them that the manuscript is at their service. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 CHAR L ES E. PE K L I 'S 
 
 
 V 
 
ADDRESS OF 
 
 Hon. Charles E„ Phelps, 
 
 BEFORE THE OXFORD .AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7th, 1870. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 A citizen of another State, and a 
 member of another profession than that 
 of Agriculture, the honor has been as- 
 signed to me of addressing the first an- 
 nual meeting of your Society. History 
 records that once there existed a line of 
 division between your State and mine. 
 Upon the Pennsylvania side, agricultu- 
 ral labor was then as it is now, voluntary 
 and compensated. Upon the Maryland 
 side it was to a considerable extent 
 compulsory, a lingering but tenacious 
 legacy of by-gone barbaric ages and 
 usages. Practically, Maryland, though a 
 slave state, was a stronger abolition 
 state than her free sister Pennsylvania. 
 Up to the war of the rebellion she had 
 voluntarily emancipated more slaves than 
 Pennsylvania ever owned; and while 
 that war was at its most doubtful crisis, 
 as if to blow up with nitro-glycerine the 
 bridge between her and the belligerent 
 and almost triumphant confederacy, 
 Maryland with one constitutional vote 
 shattered the hoary fabric into ruin. 
 
 Upon the long list of casualties of 
 the great war of the rebellion, no names 
 are recognized as more thoroughly dead, 
 than those of Mason and Dixon among 
 the killed ; and more completely lost, 
 than that of Mason and Dixon's line 
 among the missing. 
 
 Opinions may vary as to the precise 
 day or spot upon which they fell, but 
 none dispute the mournful fact that 
 they and their line are gone, and gone 
 beyond the reach of resurrection. 
 
 One thing is certain, their most mor- 
 tal wound was received, as was right, 
 in Pennsylvania's soil, and from Penn- 
 sylvania bands. Meade and Hancock, 
 
 and the slopes of Gettysburg, must in all 
 future time answer for the fate of Mason 
 and Dixon's line. It is therefore with 
 great propriety that your association 
 has, as I understand, extended its fra- 
 ternal recognition and welcome beyond 
 the limits of Chester county to the far- 
 mers of the adjoining counties of Penn- 
 sylvania and Maryland. The climate 
 and the seasons with them, are the same 
 as with you. The natural capabilities 
 of the soil are without material differ- 
 ence. The products of the soil are iden- 
 tical. The system of labor is the same. 
 There exists no longer even an imag- 
 inary line of political or social separa- 
 tion. Common Interests, pursuits, ne- 
 cessities, added to close neighborhood 
 here along both sides of this old border 
 Slate line, unmistakably point to a bet- 
 ter understanding and a closer union be- 
 tween the farmers of Pennsylvania and 
 Maryland. 
 
 The sphere of usefulness of your So- 
 ciety is plainly not to be circumscribed 
 by state or county lines. There is a 
 significance in the very indefiniteiiess of 
 its title, ' - The Oxford Agricultural So- 
 ciety. 1 ' Here in this thriving, beautiful 
 borough, the seat of an Institution of 
 learning, the first of its kind not only in 
 this country but in any country, here in 
 the heart of a land famous for its barns, 
 its dairies, its cattle, its crops, you have 
 established the headquarters of the or- 
 ganized agricultural interests, not of a 
 single county merely, but of a wide re- 
 gion. There is no limit to the benefi- 
 cent influences which are designed to 
 radiate from Oxford as the selected seat 
 and center of our efforts at enlightment 
 and improvement. And there is no reason 
 
why this enterprise, so successfully inau- 
 gurated, should not continue year after 
 year its career of splendid but peaceful 
 conquest, collecting and diffusing practi- 
 cal information, gathering a richer har- 
 vest of induction from a continually ex- 
 panding field of experiment, exciting to 
 generous emulation the fillers of far 
 distant acres, and making permanent 
 contributions to the Agricultural science 
 of our race. 
 
 Much has been written, and much has 
 been spoken, particularly on occasions 
 like the present, of the importance of 
 agriculture to the welfare of mankind, 
 and of its dignity in the scale of human 
 pursuits. The theme, like its subject, is 
 a boundless one. It is at once the oldest 
 and the newest of arts. The processes, by 
 which are extracted from the soil and 
 atmosphere the materials for food and 
 clothing, are patented every day in a 
 thousand improved forms, and yet they 
 are essentially the same processes, pro- 
 ducing precisely the same results,as those 
 which were rudely practised in pre-his- 
 toric times, nebulous with myth and fa- 
 ble. Men ploughed, and sowed, and 
 weeded, and watered, and digged, audi 
 fertilized, and reaped and thrashed, and 
 winnowed, and gathered into barns.ages 
 before the Hebrew shepherd Boy super- 
 intended the colossal granaries of Egypt,! 
 or a vineyard was planted by the surviv- 
 ingPatriarch of the deluge. Very recent 
 discoveries in the lakes of Switzerland, 
 Italy and Germany, in the bogs of Ireland] 
 and the peat mosses of Scandinavia, have' 
 brought to light the rude implements of a 
 primitive agriculture , buried and forgot- 
 ten, long before European history com- 
 menced. Fragments of pottery, hatchets, 
 scythes, sickles, horse-shoes, bridle-bits, 
 plow shares. grind-stones, the relics of ra- 
 ces and periods as to which the oldest his- 
 tory is silent, have been within the last 
 ten years disinterred from beneath the 
 tombs of uncounted centuries. The skill 
 of the antiquarian has exhausted itself 
 in vain in assigning to the successive 
 ages of stone, of bronze and of iron indi- 
 cated by the archaeological strata through 
 which he has burrowed in search of these 
 mysterious relics, some known data bv 
 which the latest of them could be con- 
 nected with the most ancient historical 
 or traditional times. No author of antiq- 
 uity refers to these relics, or to the gen- 
 erations whose presence on our globe 
 they attest. An acute observer ,and copi- 
 
 ous narrator ,Pliny,spent his country life 
 upon the banks of one of these Italian 
 lakes, and died in ignorauee of the fasci- 
 nating lore secreted beneath its waters. 
 No ancient chronicle, no legend, no tra- 
 dition extant in Pliny's time, in the first 
 century of our era, could have suggested 
 the faiutest trace of these primeval pre- 
 decessors of the Gauls, Helvetians and 
 Etruscans. They had long before his 
 time perished from the memory of man. 
 
 And yet we are as well assured that 
 these forgotten generations once lived,as 
 we are certain of the existauce of our 
 own grand-fathers. We have in our 
 hands as convincing and conclusive evi- 
 dences of the fact, as if their own depo- 
 sitions had come down to us properly au- 
 thenticated. We not only know the fact 
 that they lived, but we know how they 
 lived. The science of archaeology has 
 succeeded to a partial, it is true, but mar- 
 velous degree, in reconstructing the 
 shattered and forgotten fabric of their 
 clumsy civlization, by a similar analysis 
 to that by which the genius of Cuvier 
 from a fossil tooth or fragment could re- 
 produce the entire frame of a mastodon. 
 
 We can see to-day the iudentical ves- 
 sels in which they storod their milk, the 
 drainers in which they pressed 
 cheese, the porringers from which they 
 took their soup. Weapons of war and of 
 the chase they certainly possessed, but 
 none have yet been discovered among 
 the relics of these primative populations 
 as murderous as the needle-gun, or the 
 mitrailleuse with its forty death-dealing 
 barrels breathing the gentle s[ irit of 
 modern civilzation, inspired by the lessons 
 and examples of nineteen Christian 
 centuries. 
 
 The utensils of husbandry which have 
 been found are of various patterns, in 
 stone and metal. Those of stone are as- 
 signed to the earliest period ; those of 
 iron, to the latest. The intermdiate 
 period is called the age of bronze, and 
 the implements belonging to it have been 
 found in a remarkable state of preserva- 
 tion. The composition of this metal is 
 copper and tin. No zinc is found in the 
 bronzes of this period. Utensils of horn 
 and bone, and earthenware are common 
 to all these periods. Not only have these 
 lost generations of antiquity bequeathed 
 to us their old farming tools and crock- 
 ery, they have even left us samples of 
 their bread. The bread has been kept 
 safe and sound through several thousand 
 
years by being carbonized like tbe peatltions for their subsistance. 
 
 in which it was found buried. It was re- And this condition as necessarily in- 
 ported to be good bread, but somewhat volves the idea that the efforts of the 
 stale. I have not heard that any butter husbandman have advanced beyond the 
 has been sampled as yet. With respect point of a mere provision for the wants 
 to the bread it is curious that the veiy of himself and his family, to the accumu- 
 grain of which it was made has been rec- latiou of a surplus wealth. With this sur- 
 ognizecl. Some has been found of millet, plus he feeds the city and at the same 
 and some evidently of wheat, the flour time gains an exchange in her markets, 
 being unbolted and imperfectly ground.; Agriculture therefore must have become 
 
 There are many parts of the earth an art before cities were possible. 
 where the art of agriculture to-day is Commerce has been frequently called 
 very little advanced beyond the point the great civilizer of mankind. It is 
 attained in those pre-historic ages. I certainly difficult to over estimate the 
 have myself seen in the plains of Lom- importance ot this noble department of 
 hardy, a man ploughing with a sin- human industry. Whether foreign or 
 gle beast, harnessed before a crooked inland, by caravan or trading ship; by 
 stick,which appeared to tickle the earth's trireme or steamer, by conestoga wagon 
 skin about hard enough to make it or railroad, it has in ancient and modern 
 laugh. In the same classic region, not times diffused among mankind the corn- 
 far from the banks of the Ticino, where forts aud appliances of an improved life, 
 IIannibal,after his descent from the Alps, stimulated industry and enterprise, cora- 
 lirst encountered the Roman legion un-municated knowledge, enlarged and lib- 
 der Scipio and routed them in a pitched eralized the intellect. More than all this 
 battle, I saw with my own eyes, a man, the crowning glory may probably be as- 
 a woman, and several children in a field cribed to commerce of having given let- 
 by the roadside, driving a cow round ters to the race, and made thought and 
 and round over what looked like a large genius immortal. The Phenecian mar- 
 sheet spread upon the ground. Upon |iners and merchants who were the pio- 
 inquiring the meaning of the singular neers of coastwise and ocean commerce, 
 exhibitions sort of one cow circus, I learn- finding memory too short for their multi- 
 ed that it was an agricultural family of plied transactions, committed them to 
 of the period engaged in threshing out symbols which are still perpetuated in 
 their crop of rape seed. These people the alphabet of Homer, Shakespeare and 
 and their predecessors have been plough- Schiller. 
 
 ing and threshing in precisely the same But though commerce has done all 
 way, upon the same spot, from the time this and more, though she has found 
 of tlannibars invasion, and doubtless the magnetic needle, colonized old and 
 long before. discovered new continents, though she 
 
 As Agriculture is the most ancient of has given to science that magnificent 
 of arts, so it is the chief corner stone of revelation of the true form and motion 
 civilization. This statement m ay possi- of the planet that has led to the astound- 
 bly at first sight seem too broad, and in ing discoveries of Newton, Kepler and 
 conflict with the terminology of the word La Place, she is after all but the cora- 
 , •'■civilization , ' itself, which as well as the raon carrier of agriculture. The raw ma- 
 kindred term "urbanity" appear to im-terial and the manufactured fabric which 
 ply a contrast between the polish and are the interchange of commerce, are 
 refinement attributed to the populous to a very large extent the direct product 
 life of cities, and the rustic isolation and of the soil, or else thai product combin- 
 in dependence of the fields. A moments ed with skilled labor, which though not 
 reflection, however shows; that even agricultural depends immediately upon 
 from that point of view, the position is agriculture for support, 
 well taken, and literally correct. With From this casual reference to manu- 
 out agriculture, and indeed an advanced factures, it is natural to pass to a some- 
 stage of agriculture, there could he no what closer attention to the relations 
 cities, no towns. between that branch of industry and the 
 
 Their very existence necessarily im- one which it is the object of your Society 
 plies a systematic and provident culture to foster. To prepare the soil for the seed, 
 oi the surrounding country upon which it must be broken up. A repeated stirring 
 : hov can depend with unfailing expecta- of the soil is required to keep down the 
 
weeds. The matured crop must be cut, 
 hauled, threshed, and hauled again. 
 Without implements, therefore the far- 
 mer is helpless, Hence the dependence 
 of agriculture upon ihe mechanic art. It 
 will be of course understood that the ag- 
 riculture here spoken of is the progres- 
 sive art practised b} r civilized men, and 
 not the mere manual drudgery of extort- 
 ing a simble subsistauce from the soil 
 by those who manufacture the clumsy 
 tools they till with. In that phase of 
 agriculture which preceeded the division 
 of labor, when the husbandman made his 
 own plow out of a root or branch hard- 
 ened in the fire, and his own spade or hoe 
 out of a flint stone, such as are found 
 in the Indian mounds of this continent, 
 and his own sickle out of the same rude 
 material, or from the more artificial me- 
 tallic composition of which specimens 
 have been found amidst the relics of the 
 age of bronze, the husbandman might 
 with-strict propriety be called indepen- 
 dent, and it is in that phase,and in that 
 sense alone, thatlagriculture may be regar 
 ded as an independent pursuit. But it is 
 when most independent, that husbandry 
 and the husbandman are in the most ab- 
 ject condition. After expending much 
 valuable time and much hard labor that 
 should have been devoted to the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil upon the preparation, or 
 repair, or renewal of his implements, he 
 finds those contrivances so imperfect 
 that with all his diligence in their use no 
 fruits of his industry result beyond a 
 meager sustenance. It is only when the 
 skilled artisan begins to make the farm- 
 er dependent upon him for time-saving 
 and labor-saving utensils, that agricul- 
 ture begins to advance as an art, with 
 capacities for indefinite progress aad 
 perfectibility. The use of these improved 
 appliances, enabling the farmer to make 
 twice the crop in one half the time, not 
 only gives him leisure for reflection, obser- 
 vation and comparison of experiences 
 with others similalry engaged, and oppor- 
 tunties for projecting new modes of culti- 
 vation, but provides him with a surplus 
 capital on which he may venture to make 
 experiments,acquire additional land, hire 
 the labor to till it, contribute his 
 quota to the defence of the state, the 
 maintenance of public order, and the 
 support of religion, and finally to sur- 
 round himself with those comforts and 
 embellishments which tend to dignify, 
 elevate and adorn the social and civili- 
 
 zed man. 
 
 It was stated in the outset, that agri- 
 culture is at once the oldest and the 
 newest of the arts. Within the last fifty 
 years, it has made more progress, than 
 during the three thousand years before. 
 For much the larger portion of this im- 
 provement, it is indebted to the wonder- 
 ful mechanical inventions that have dis- 
 tinguished this half century beyond any 
 other period of history. Men are now 
 living, who have seen the old strap plow, 
 or wooden mould board superseded by the 
 steel clipper, and the shovel and the hoe 
 laid down before the rotary spader and 
 the cultivator. Since the organization of 
 the Patent Office, more than a thousand 
 patents have been issued in America for 
 improvements in plows and cultivators 
 alone. Very few of this number it is true 
 have been generally approved, and most 
 of them are practically worthless, ex- 
 cept as approximations and suggestive 
 possibilities which only await, the next 
 step in the march of inventive genius to 
 realize new and brilliant conquests of 
 mind over matter. It is to this transition 
 period that we must for the present as- 
 sign the idea of the steam plow, as prac- 
 tically available to American tillage. 
 
 In like manner, a living generation 
 has seen the hand sickle, the scythe, tiie 
 cradle, the rake, the flail and the open 
 cylinder, give place to machine reapers 
 and mowers with self-raking and binding 
 auxiliaries, to threshing machines, with 
 separators,winnowers and straw carriers. 
 These cunning combinations of wheel 
 and lever which subsidize the muscle of 
 the animal creation and substitute brute 
 power for its equivalent in human labor, 
 are mainly the inventions of American 
 machinists, and within the last quarter 
 of a century have revolutionized the sys- 
 tem of agriculture not only of our own 
 country, but of the civilized world. There 
 were according to the census of 18Go, 
 two and a half millions of farmers in the 
 United States, employing nearly 800,000 
 farm laborers. It has been estimated, 
 and in my opinion the estimate falls consi- 
 derably below the truth, that agricultural 
 machinery has added the labor of a mil- 
 lion more able bodied men. What a tre- 
 mendous reinforcement to the military 
 power of a nation, this substitution of ma- 
 chanism for muscle, has been illustrated 
 by the late civil war,which withdrew from 
 industrial pursuits, chiefly agricultural, in 
 ihe northern stares alone, nearly two 
 
millions of men; and yet more acres 
 were tilled, and more bushels were har- 
 vested by the farmers who staid at home 
 than in years of profound peace. 
 
 But after all, important as is the art 
 of the mechanic to agriculture, there is 
 one thing even more indispensable. 
 Armed and equipped as the farmer 
 might be with all the appliances and 
 
 immortal youth, eternal and indestructi- 
 ble save by a fiat as Omnipotent as that 
 which created them, these atoms and 
 particles with all their properties and 
 qualities, their chemical affinties, their 
 attractions and repulsions, their gravi- 
 tation, their polarity, their luminous, 
 calorific and electric vibrations, have 
 through an infinitely varied series of 
 
 enginery of mechanical skill, he would be combinations and dissolutions,decompo- 
 the most helpless of beings unless breadjsitions and recompositions, supplied the 
 were in his soil; for if bread is not in the material for all the generations of vege- 
 soil.no invention that human enginuity table, animal and human life. Not an 
 can devise can get bread out of it. In atom of them is lost, nor its place un- 
 thc economy of nature there is no waste, known to Omniscience, 
 no destruction, no annihilation of ele-j One day in the brain of Shakespeare, 
 ments, but a constant flux and reflux. jthe next, ascending in vapor to the 
 
 Let us consider this for a moment, clouds, the next falling in rain upon the 
 There is no species of property, which sod ; it may then be caught for a few 
 we are accustomed to regard as so pe- years in the bony frame work of a graz- 
 culiarly, so exclusively and so indefeasi- ing ox, and patiently awaitiug the mould- 
 bly our own, as the property we hold in ering of its skeleton upon the soil, may 
 the flesh that covers our bones. pass through a grain of wheat to flash 
 
 We commonly look upon it as per- in the eye of beauty or strike with the 
 sonal property of the highest order, arm of power. 
 
 and yet it may be logically and And thus what was grass yesterday 
 philosophically demonstrated that no is flesh to-day, and what is flesh to-day 
 greater fallacy could possibly be enter- will be grass again to-morrow. Such has 
 tained, and that our individual tenure of: been the constaut order and sequence 
 that identical flesh, and of the bones of nature ever since and long before 
 inside it, so far from being a fee simple, Isaiah wrote "All flesh is grass." But 
 undivided interest, is not even a life it is no part of this inexorable law that 
 estate, out the merest temporary tenancy, the second crop of grass shall necessari- 
 and that upon very trancient leases, ly grow upon the same spot with the 
 Pythagoras held the doctrine of the first. It is just as likely to sprout up on 
 transmigration of souls, the fundamental the opposite circumference of the globe, 
 error of which, doubtless, was a heathen- or to waste its verdure upon some un- 
 ish confounding of the material with the peopled isle in mid-ocean. The labor 
 spiritual part of man. Had Pythagoras of man is necessary; that labor at once 
 stopped at the transmigration of bodies, provident, intelligent and unceasing, to 
 his philosophy would have been nearer control these accidents of nature, and to 
 the literal truth. These mortal vestments guide its dissolving fluxing and fertili- 
 of ours, are but the cast oft' clothing of zing elements to their proper destina- 
 other men and animals, both the living tious. 
 
 and the dead. Of them we might say The principle that underlies and reg- 
 with quite as much sincerity, and proba- ulates this effort, is the simple one ot 
 bly as much truth as the arch hypocrite, justice. It recognizes in nature, not the 
 lago, said of his purse — "who steals my" slave of man bound to yield at his su- 
 fiexh "steals trash. Twas mine, 'tis his preme inundate its unearned bounties, 
 and has been slave to thousands." These but his ally and copartner, requiring 
 atoms and particles of carbon and hy- only the simple justice of an equivalent 
 drgen and oxygen and nitrogen in which for what she yields him. 
 we robe ourselves to-day in all the pride There is neither magic nor mystery in 
 and plenitude of personality, have come good husbandry. There is simply the 
 down to us from ages far beyond the plain downright justice of giving back 
 flood, each with its own unconfused to the soil the fertility of which it has 
 identity and distinct biography. been cropped. The best of farmers is 
 
 Hoary with an antiquity of unrecord-jhe who takes heavy crops from his broad 
 ed centuries and cycles past the power! acres, and leaves them better than he 
 of numbers to compute, yet fresh with found them. 
 
8 
 
 It is in this aspect especially that ag- 
 riculture, within a recent period, has 
 been elevated from an art, and has attain 
 ed the proportions and dignity of a sci- 
 ence. 
 
 Science has to deal with facts — with 
 truths — with the confirmed results of ob- 
 servations aud experiments ; and from 
 a patient, methodical classification and 
 analysis of those results, to rise to the 
 investigation and discovery of principles 
 and laws. Without facts to start with, 
 established facts, facts varied and quali- 
 fied by every possible condition and 
 mode, facts tested and multiplied !;y ev- 
 ery possible experiment, there can be no 
 generlization, no induction, no discovery 
 of law and consequently no prediction 
 of science. Agriculture for several thou- 
 sand years has made but little progress 
 as an art, and as a science has only be- 
 gun to exist within the memory of liv- 
 ing men; and why V Because the contri- 
 butions of new facts were few or none 
 at all ; because there were no organized 
 systematic efforts to elicit such contri- 
 butions or to collect these results, be- 
 cause each successive generation plod- 
 ded on in the beaten path marked out 
 by its predecessors, and rode to the mill 
 with grain in one end of the bag and a 
 stone in the other tobalance,for no bet- 
 ter reason than because somebody's 
 grand-father had always ridden in the 
 same way before him. The first 
 step in the direction of elevating 
 agriculture to a science of discovery 
 and prediction was taken when the first 
 agricultural society was organized. 
 There are now nearly 1400 agricultural 
 and horticultural societies, state and lo- 
 cal in correspondence with a depart- 
 ment of the National Government at 
 Washington specially dedicated to the 
 agricultural interests of the country. 
 Journals and periodicals devoted to the 
 same interests exclusively, now circulate 
 a number of copies larger than the ag- 
 gregate circulation of all the newspapers 
 of every kind printed at the commence- 
 ment of this century. Besides the agri- 
 cultural Journals proper, nearly every 
 newspaper printed in the city or coun- 
 try, whether daily or weekly, habitually 
 assigns a liheral and leading place in its 
 columns to agricultural topics. In addi- 
 tion to the state and local associations 
 whose annual exhibitions of cattle and 
 horses, sheep and hogs and poultry, 
 and of farm and dairy, orchard and 
 
 garden products, with premiums 
 offered for successful competition, 
 have become the great rural exchange 
 of our people. There have sprung up in 
 many localities farmers clubs with more 
 frequent meetings for interchange of 
 views, comparison of experiences.and in- 
 formal discussion of matters connected 
 with their profession. Some of these clubs 
 are kept up with so much interest and 
 spirit that their proceedings are regular- 
 ly reported for the public press, and 
 read with eagerness and profit, bj' intel- 
 ligentfarmers throughout the country. 
 
 Such associations are of the highest 
 value, and ought in every way be en- 
 couraged. Like everything else of real 
 worth, they are not to be had without 
 effort, nor properly sustained without 
 continued exertion. They do not come 
 of themselves. Farmers are not natu- 
 rally gregarious. The very necessities 
 of their occupation tends to scatter and 
 isolate them. Deployed over the face 
 of the earth at distant intervals, each 
 one finds sufficient employment for his 
 attention upon the acres that surround 
 him; and the farmer's work you all know 
 is never done. It is true that occasion- 
 ally they are drawn together by law, 
 politics or religion, but neither the church, 
 the barbecue nor the court house can 
 be converted into schools of agricultural 
 improvement. Agricultural colleges 
 with experimental farms attached, have 
 been recently established, but they can 
 accomplish no more for this special de- 
 partment than any other college.for any 
 other learning which they teach; they 
 can lay the foundation for an education, 
 not complete it. This is pre-eminently 
 the age of co-operation. Everybody 
 else is combining, organizing, disciplin- 
 ing and drilling. 
 
 The farmers must do the same thing, 
 or they will be left behind, imposed up- 
 on and victimized. "Without these ad- 
 vantages of mutual aid, organized and 
 disciplined movement which character- 
 ize the age we live in, the farmers while 
 they imagine they are only attending to 
 their own business, and letting well 
 enough alone, will by and by discover 
 that they are being driven, and sold, and 
 fleeced like their own sheep. Take your 
 great railway corporations for instance. 
 They are really dependent on agriculture 
 for the life blood that feeds them. Their 
 lucrative freights, the enormous profits 
 in which their bond and slockholders 
 
9 
 
 participate, are nothing but the coined ( middle-men are as fairly entitled to their 
 sweat and toil of the tanners. But what reasonable profit as the farmer to his. 
 has combination done for these great It is only when the miller, the merchant 
 lines of communication ? It has made and the broker from capitalists become 
 them practically masters of the situation, speculators, and from speculators 
 Though the farmers out number and , conspirators to take advantage of the 
 might out vote all other interests combi- uecesities of both the producer and con- 
 ned yet, because they have neglected to sumer, that a disturbing and dangerous 
 concentrate their strength, they are j element is introduced, which atfects most 
 bound hand and foot all along the lines! disastrously the agricultural interests of 
 of these gigantic corporations, which ex- the country. There isa class of opulent 
 tinguish all competition, silence all farmers whose accumulated wealth ena- 
 oppositions, control the legislation bles them to hold back their crops, and 
 of great states, and in some instances who are thus beyond the reach of the 
 the administration of justice itself, unprincipled intrigues. But the great 
 The struggles of these great rival majority are not capitalists, they are 
 lines to secure the contested through' fighting the battle of life with all their 
 traffic, and thus make their monopolies forces in front,they have no reserves to 
 still more complete and crushing, are call into action, or to fallback upon, 
 carried on in merciless and arrogant dis- when the pressure of onset is felt. No 
 dain of the hapless way-freighters, at, matter at what sacrifice, their crops and 
 whose cost the unprincipled war-fare is their cattle must move to market, forced 
 waged. The time has come for the far- down artificially though it be bylthe mani- 
 mers of the country to organize in self- pulations of confederate speculators, or 
 defence against the ruinous tactics of visions of judgments, mortgages and the 
 these audacious coalitions. It is time sheriff's hammer ,haunt their dreams like 
 for them to understand and assert their spectres. Their humble barns are emp- 
 power, and with all the force of their tied sadly, mournfully and with tea rs,at 
 numbers' intelligence and influence com prices which bitterly suggest the unre- 
 bined in disciplined and persistent ef- quited toil, hazard and privation of the 
 fort demand the necessary legislation to year's labor which keep the children at 
 remedy these abuses of monopoly. If home from school, and the mother in 
 state legislatures are powerless to cor- her old dress and bonnet. His little 
 rect the evil, then let Congress exercise crop has gone into the plethoric ware- 
 its constitutional power, over commerce! house of the speculator who can afford to 
 between the states, and enact a uniform await his own time and price,andhis cat- 
 tariff of freights, so much per ton per tie are the property ot a ring of monop- 
 mile the whole country over, and thusjolists. Bread and beef are still dear to 
 put local and through freights upon the the consumer, though the farmer has re- 
 same equitable basis, and let through jalized but little in producing them, 
 freights find their natural outlet over 1 Here is a problem which legislation 
 the shortest routes. has grappled with time and again for 
 
 But there are other combinations al- centuries, and has at last given up in 
 most equally formidable and oppressive despair. The old common law misde- 
 to the farmer, although not legislated meanor of forestalling and regrating 
 into the shape of bodies corporate. Why! have long since become obsolete. Wri- 
 is it that there are times when the cou- ; ting more than a century ago, Black- 
 sumer has to pay extravagant prices for] stone informs us in this connection that: 
 the necessaries of life, while for the same "Combinations among victuallers or arti 
 staples the farmer, who produces them ficers to raise the price of provisions, or 
 can barely get a living price for his la-! any commodities, or the rate of labor, 
 bor,aud sometimes not even that? Let me are in many cases severely punished by 
 not be misunderstood, I am about to particular statutes, and, in general, by 
 make no onslaught upon the great tra- statute 2 and 3 Edw. VI c. 15, with the 
 ding classes of the country. The com- [forfeiture 10 1. or twenty days imprison- 
 mission merchant is as necessary to the|ment, with an allowance of only bread 
 farmer as the mechanic, as necessary asland water for the first offence, 20 1. or 
 the railroad. The farmer cannot be his|the pillory for the second and, 40 1. for 
 own huckster, he must reach the consu-i the third, or else the pillory, loss of 
 mer through middle-men. and these one ear, and perpetual infamy. 
 
10 
 
 in the same manner, by a constitution Other features might be united in this 
 of the Emperor Zeno, all monopolies plan, such as that of a Mutual Insur- 
 and combinations to keep up the price of ance company, and a Mutual Building- 
 merchandize, provisions or workmanship, Association. Mutual Insurance Compan- 
 were prohibited upon pain of forfeiture panies have long been established and 
 of goods and perpetual banishment. 4 are well known in all parts of the coun- 
 com. 159. try. Building, Benefit or Homestead 
 
 If any laws of a similar tenor still ex- Societies have been recently multiplied 
 ist upon the statute books of any of our in cities and towns to an astonishing ex- 
 States, they are practically a dead let- tent. There are several hundreds of 
 ter. Nobody ever heard of a Grand them in the city of Baltimore alone, in 
 Jury indicting any of those operators, which all clashes of the community are 
 although they are as well known in more or less interested, but principally 
 every community as if they were mechanics and working men. They are 
 marked under theold statute of Edward based upon the same principle astheco- 
 V I, with a cropped ear. operative societies or unions already re- 
 
 It is a question for serious considei^a-'ferred to, and result in making the ten- 
 tion whether this evil,which legislation ant his own land-lord. The system by 
 has proved utterly powerless to cope which this is accomplished is a very in- 
 with,cannot be at ieast in some measure genious and artificial one, too eiab- 
 remedied by concert of action amongst orate in all its detail to be explained at 
 the farmers. There seems to be no length withouttedious prolixity , but sim 
 good reason why farmers should not be pie enough to be perfectly intelligible to 
 able by co-operative agencies to protect the plainest understanding, 
 i.hemselves from extortion and plunder The sum and substance of it is to en- 
 as effectually as laborers and artisans, able the stockholders by the payment 
 Factory operatives in Great Britan have of small weekly sums, not larger than 
 formed themselves into joint stock com-) the amount he would otherwise pay for 
 panies with shares of moderate amount; 1 the rent of his dwelling house, to re- 
 and have for a long time, and with great deem at the expiration of a term of 
 success, carried on co-operative stores years the mortgage held by the company 
 from which they draw their family sup- upon the house, which he has purchased 
 plies at fair prices, and realize the pro- with the means advanced by his Building- 
 fit upon their own custom in the shape Society, and which thus becomes his 
 of handsome dividends. Not only own property instead of reverting to a 
 stores,but large manufacturing enterpri- landlord. The advantages of such a sys- 
 ses have been established, and success- tern, to the individual, as well as to 
 fully worked upon the same principle,: society are obvious and important. The 
 the laborer and the capitalist being uui- prospect of acquiring a home of his own 
 ted in the stock holder. Following out! is an ever-present incentive to exertion 
 the same idea it would seem practicable and frugality, and the payment of these 
 for the farmers of a neighborhood to weekly dues to the Building Society di- 
 start a co-operative ware-house with verts hundreds of thousands of dollars 
 sufficient capital to make advances upon; from the corner dram shops. They are 
 produce deposited in pledge, which in fact the best Temperance Societies, 
 would give the farmer the benefit There is no reason why the advauta- 
 of the rise in price when he should ges of such a system should be confined 
 choose his own time to sell, and at the to the city or to the mechanics, and in- 
 same time, place him in funds to bridge deed it has already begun to be introdu- 
 over the anxious intervals. The inter- ced among the farmers in some parts of 
 est upon those loans with storage and Maryland. Through such agencies, far- 
 profit would pay all expenses if honestly mers of moderate means might be ena- 
 and judiciously' administered, and yield bled to put up improvements on their 
 a moderate dividend. A good Board of land of abetter class than they would 
 Directors of the most substantial and otherwise attempt. Their application 
 reliable farmers in the concern, a fre-to the condition and necessities of the 
 quent inspection and audit of accounts rural districts would of course involve 
 and frequent meetings of the stockhold-isome modification of details, which are 
 ers would secure both an honest and ju-'arranged with special reference to the 
 dicious administration of the funds, dwellers in towns, but the underlying 
 
11 
 
 principles and results would be the same 
 and the outlines of the system identical. 
 [ have one more suggestion to make 
 of a practical character before I con- 
 clude. I take it for granted that in se- 
 lecting for your orator on this occasion, 
 a member ot the bar, you have not ex- 
 pected to be enlightened much on the 
 subject of farming. As every man in 
 America is a natural born statesman, so 
 every man thinks he is a born farmer, 
 and no matter what his occupation ma} 7 
 be, expects some day to retire from bu- 
 siness and run a farm by way of recrea- 
 tion. But I can assure you that so far 
 as 1 am concerned, I have not come 
 here with the slightest idea of instruct- 
 ing you as to the proper rotation of crop 
 or of teaching the ladies of Chester Co., 
 how to put up butter. I have nothing 
 to say about manures, soils, plows or 
 reapers, I have no new fertilizer to ad-j 
 vertise in this market, and am not the. 
 agent for anybody's patent horse medi- 
 cine. Nor do I appear here in any offi- 
 cial capacity, nor as a public functiona-: 
 ry, either actual or potential, either inj 
 present or possible future tense. I am j 
 here in response to your call in my exal-j 
 ted capacity of a private citizen. As a! 
 member of the legal fraternity I take; 
 credit to myself for greet forbearance,; 
 and some modesty in having refrained, 
 on so eligible an opportunity, from en- 
 larging upon the iudispensible impor- 
 tance of the legal profession to agricul- 
 ture. I think it could have been made 
 clear that farmers, so far from being the| 
 independent persons they are sometimes 
 supposed to be, are in fact wholly de- 
 pendent upon courts and lawyers, and; 
 courts are only lawyers sitting down in- 
 stead of standing up. The strength of a 
 
 chain is only the strength ot the weakest 
 link in it, and if only one link in his 
 chain of title can have a flaw picked in 
 it by a lawyer, the farmer will find a 
 Bill in Chancery or an Ejectment suit 
 going through his possessions not quite 
 so quickly as a steam plow, but a good 
 deal more effectually. 
 
 Seriously, however, my friends, the. 
 remark with which I conclude is the 
 close and intimate communion with na- 
 ture in all her aspects and phases and 
 phenomena, by which the cultivators of 
 the soil are favored beyond all other 
 classes ot men, and which ought to in- 
 spire and teach to look "through Nature 
 up to Natures God.''' The man whatever 
 his occupation may be, whose highest 
 aim is to feed and fatten his mortality is 
 not fit for an agriculturist, except in that 
 sense in which swine are agriculturists. 
 With him, as with them, it is simply 
 root pig and die. The profession of the 
 husbandman is a favored one, its tenden- 
 cies are naturally, to him who remem- 
 bers that he has an intellect and a soul, 
 elevating and noble. From that profes- 
 sion, more than all others combined, are 
 drawn the rich imagery, the similes, the 
 illustrations, the parables of Holy Writ. 
 I feel that I cannot more profitably part 
 from you than in the exact words of one 
 of those impressive lessons in which the 
 apostle Paul has swept into the track of 
 his glowing and resistless logic the whole 
 philosophy of agriculture ■ 
 
 "Be not deceived ; God is not mock- 
 ed ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
 shall he also reap. 
 
 For he that soweth to his flesh, shall 
 of the flesh reap corruption : but he that 
 soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit 
 reap life everlasting. Gal. VI — 7 — H. 
 
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