Address delivered before the New York state agricultural society at its sixteenth annual fair

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ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

Hetu Vork State Agricultural Society

AT ITS

SIXTEENTH ANNUAL FAIR

HELD AT

WATERTOWN, OCTOBER 34, 1856.

BY HON. WILLIAM JESSUP,

OF MONTROSE, PENN.

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY.

-

ALBANY:
FISK & LITTLE, 82 STATE STREET,
1856.

ADDRESS.

Mr. Presipent, AND Lapies AND GENTLEMEN OF THE
New Yorx Strate AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY :

In compliance with the invitation of your com-
mittee, | appear before you to pronounce your an-
nual address.

Looking at the distinguished character and
pre-eminent abilities of those who in several suc-
cessive years have preceded me in the discharge of
this duty, and the high character of their addresses,
the broad scope and full discussion they have given
to most topics seemingly proper for such occasions,
it might well become so humble an individual to
decline this honor. But my apology must be found
in my love and veneration for the great cause of
Agriculture, and a desire to add my poor mite to
its onward progress and steady advancement.

In this desire I bring a few suggestions which
may serve to fill that space, in your interesting
exercises usually allotted to this object.

For a little more than a century our national
progress has been so rapid, as to leave us and those

4

who preceded us, no stopping place, no apparent
quiet and calm, in which there could bea gather-
ing up of the rich profusions which have sur-
rounded us; and a consolidation, so to speak, of
the elements which constitute our greatness.—
They all lie strewn along our pathway—scattered
every where—and_ in the disarranged and disorder-
ed state in which we pass by them in our rapid
progress, most truly and fully bear their testimony
to our national greatness.

We are yet ina giant infancy—our institutions
are shaped and molded by influences which have
never seen a parallel in the History of Earth. Far
removed by the wide intervention of the Atlantic
from the corrupt and corrupting influences of the
Old World, we have been enabled to discard many
of their maxims, and to adopt a course of policy,
civil and political, tending essentially to equality.
We have discarded the laws of primo geniture, so
that few estates can largely accumulate, and as
matter of fact, most large estates are divided and
partitioned in the second or third generation.

We have abolished all aristocratic titles and
orders, and opened all the honors that can be con-
ferred by the government, to a fair competition of
all the people. We boast that one American
citizen stands upon the same platform with every
other. We invite all and of every land and of
every clime, to come and participate with us in the
blessings of liberty and equality. We welcome
them to our shores, and offer them protection and
a home.

3)

In this our nation’s youth, we afford an asylum
for the oppressed, a refuge from tyranny, and more
than all, a sure reward for industry and frugality.
Our arms are open to receive honest labor come
from whatever place it may.

A retrospect of the brief years since our fathers
landed on this

“Rock bound coast,”

fills the mind with wonder. That which has been
accomplished, seems, as we look back upon it, “as
a dream when one awaketh.”’

Where are the mighty forests which so recently
covered the largest and fairest portions of your great
state ? ,

Where are those trees which in all their primi-
tive grandeur spread their branches in an unbroken
shade from the Hudson to Lake Erie ?

They are gone—the ceaseless hands of industry
have shorn them of their ever-green mantle, their
timbers, wrought into the ground-work of a world-
wide commerce, bear proudly to the breeze the
flags of every nation. The desolate moan of the
forest pine has:given way to the lowing of cattle
and the busy hum of mechanical and agricultural
labor. Cities and villages and fertile fields occupy
their places, and industry in its varied forms of
interest and enjoyment diffuses happiness through
millions of hearts.

Were these forests in their majestic silence
grand? Is this civilization which sheds its hal-
lowed influence over this, so late a wilderness,

6

srand? Is this magic touch which has in such
brief space, called into existence your cities and
towns, and canals, and railroads, and filled all
with plenty for their thronging millions—is this
erand ?

How much grander then, is the contemplation
of that Free Labor which has produced them all!
that well requited and paid industry, without
which none of these things had been, or being, had
been a blot anda stain upon them all.

The moral grandeur and dignity of agricultural labor
is i part my theme. 7

I refer not here to those labor-saving machines
which so well subserve the cause of agriculture, -
and give character and honor to our age. They
claim a meed of praise on every suitable occasion.
Their influence is everywhere felt and acknowl-
edged. They are rapidly hastening us along in
the road to national wealth, and promise to
make us the granary of the world.

But they did not fell the forests—they did not
roll the logs; the wilderness could only be assailed
single handed, and nothing but the axe and fire-
brand of the pioneer was adequate to its destruction.

Who has not seen him, as solitary, in his own
self-reliance, he walks into the heart of the forest,
builds his bark cabin, far removed from roads, from
neighbors, from all the comforts and refinements
of life, from social privileges and enjoyments, and
there, axe in hand, commencing his attacks upon

that forest in expectation of making it “‘to bud and
blossom as the rose.”

|

Who that has considered the labor and toil, the
self-denial and perseverance necessary to subdue
that forest, has not given ‘the honor to valor
due’’—to that pioneer of civilization ?

And who, when after a few years have passed,
has seen in place of that forest, the broad fields of
luxuriant harvests, the cities, the churches, the
luxuries of life, the dense and teeming population,
the canals, the railroads, aud all the appliances of ©
the civilization of the nineteenth century, has not
bowed in homage to the dignity of human labor.

The individual man who wields the axe and
fire-brand, clearing the way for all of health and
happiness which follow in his train, is the pioneer
hero of agricultural labor, and whenever seen is
worthy of high regard for his work’s sake.

So too all that great class of men, who, leaving
the comforts of home, go forth as explorers and
settlers in new fields, whether of forest or of prairie,
are worthy of regard and respect. They are men
who enlarge and extend the boundaries of human
effort, and make homes for themselves and others,
where but for their labor all would be unbroken
wilderness.

Thus we view agricultural labor in its individual
character and influence, as honorable and dignified ;
and without regard to the personal condition of the
laborer, claim for it the respect always due to
meritorious and successful enterprise. But there
are other considerations which still more tend to
enhance our estimate of the importance of agri-
cultural labor.

8

And first, The numbers engaged therein, their
character, standing and influence.

By the census of 1850, of 880,000 males nearly
one half are farmers by their profession, or engaged
in pursuits directly connected with Agriculture.
This state is a fair representative of all the Free
States, some having a larger and some a smaller
proportion of farmers.

This great disproportion of the engagements of
the male population in favor of Agriculture, gives
at once the true estimate which is, and of right
ought to be placed upon this species of labor. Its
interest is greatly enhanced by the consideration,
also, of its great value, surpassing all others in in-
calculable ratios, lying at the foundation of all other
enterprises, and being the basis of all the wealth
of the world.

To serve its interests we have drawn from the
millions of Europe, and filled our land with canals
and railroads—these monuments of the real great-
ness of the first half of the nineteenth century.
We have covered our rivers, seas and oceans with
ships, and in a word, every enterprise of man rests
upon Agriculture as its sure basis.

I only repeat what is universally conceded, and
in the concession of which no invidious comparison
is intended—that the farmers of the country, asa
body, greatly excel any other class, in the exercise
of all those virtues which adorn and elevate man.
No more pleasant picture can be presented to the
mind, than is every day to be seen in our rural
districts.

9

I have in mind such a view upon one of the
slopes which bounds a beautiful lake in your
state—farms of about one hundred acres—an area
of about five miles square—near the center, the
church, the mechanic shops, the house kept for the
public hospitality, the neat school house, and a few
stores constitute the village. The roads are well
constructed. The farms are in a high state of
cultivation, and all the scene at once gives evidence
of honest and well rewarded industry, of high moral
worth, and of the dignity of agricultural labor.

These scenes are everywhere to be found. The
beautiful valleys of Pennsylvania present the same
delightful vision; and both only compete with the
fertile plains of Ohio and the west, and the more
rough, but more highly cultivated fields of the
north and east. |

Mr. President—We can not fix too high a value
upon personal labor, nor study too much to elevate
it. It is not aspersed except by inference, but
some inferences in our day have such a tendency to
degrade personal labor that they need to be resisted.

I never can consent that the non-producing class
shall claim in any respect a superiority over those
who rise in the morning of every day to daily toil,
‘‘who work, laboring with theirown hands’”—and
these give to every other class support and suste-
nance. ‘The laborer is worthy of his hire,” and
in this country whose civil, political and social in-
stitutions are based upon principles of equality, of
regard to the just rights of all, it becomes public

duty that he be not only rewarded for that labor,
2

10
but that he receive all that consideration, to which
his‘most meritorious avocation shall entitle him.
By what process shall labor be saved in the
estimation of the world from a degree of obloquy
which is sometimes attempted to be fastened
upon it!

There isa supposed elevation of the man who
lives without’ labor, over him who toils; as a con-
sequence many of our young men flee from the
farm to the counter, and to the profession, and too’
frequently fail of success. . |

Had they been contented in their fathers’ most
honorable vocation, certain success would have
attended their efforts, and they have lived an
honored and useful life. False notion supon the
subject of the true elevation of farm labor destroyed
them. Such cases are to be found everywhere,
and the evil in some sort needs aremedy. Such
remedy in part is to be found here, in this cirele, at
this fair. The tendency of every thing here is to
bring out in prominence this grand feature of all
our arguments in favor of personal labor—to give
it a distinct prominence.

This great gathering of the farmers of this great
State in itself dignifies and elevates the labor of
which it is but the exponent. The county socie-
ties, in their fairs, their discussions, and their
addresses tend to the same point. It is most
sratifying to know that the influence of these
associations has uniformly had this tendency#and
that a great change in this particular is clearly
discernable, where these means have been success-

11

fully applied. The notion, that agricultural pur-
suits were not suited to mental acquirements—that
an educated farmer, was likely to be an unsuccess-
ful one, and that if a man knew how to hold his
plough and reap his grain, he had all that know-
ledge which a farmer need to have, is already
exploded. The associations of farmers, multiplied
as they are in all parts of the land, have done
much, very much to correct this false view, and to
give in its place the conviction that farmers of right
ought to be and must be educated. When this princi-
ple shall be fully carried out, we shall have the
dignity of farm labor truly vindicated.

This question thus necessarily runs into the
subject not only of education in our common and
higher schools, but of introducing into these schools
many of the simple elements of agricultural
science, making them, for the sons and daughters
of our farmers, the preparatory schools for those
higher institutions now being established in many
of the states, and which must find, at no remote
period, a support in every Free State. Having
already adverted to the great preponderance of the
agricultural class in numbers, it necessarily follows
that in all rural districts, the schools are filled
with those who are to be engaged in the same
business for their lives. There is a large field for
agricultural science which may be cultivated to
advantage in the common schools. Many text
books are at hand, and the farmers of the country
fave but to make the demand in earnest, and
teachers qualified to impart instruction in the

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science of agriculture will be found to fill up that
demand. By this means interest will be given to
every department of education, and while the mind
is impressible and open to right convictions, it will
be filled with useful knowledge and with correct
views of the farmer’s life and avocation, or, as it
may very properly be styled, “ The Profession of
Agriculture.”

Nor can the education of the farmer be limited
by any such bounds as these. Asa class they are
reaching far beyond this, and are already demand-
ing a more perfect and enlarged system of educa-
tion. They press upon the public attention their
claims to an elevated and expanded system. They
demand the erection and endowment of the farm-
ers high school—and will continue to demand it
until the object is attained,—and until all which
art and skill, inventive genius and science can
impart, shall be concentrated in such schools, and
thus made accessible to the young men of all parts
of the land. Nor are these schools to be the resort
of those alone who expect to be directors of the
labor of others, and managers of large estates.
The prevalence of such a sentiment would work
their ruin. They are to educate the men who are
to hold the plow in their own fields, and to give
to working farmers all the intelligence, knowledge
and science which are requisite, not only to the
proper direction of all farming operations, but if
need be, to direct and guide the affairs of state,
when, by the call of their country, that duty shall
be laid upon them.

13

Mr. President—Political discussions can not be
introduced here, but I shall not trench upon for-
bidden ground when I affirm, that farmers have
not been sufficiently numerous in the councils of
the state or nation.

We need more of their sound minds and matured
judgments and calm conservatism in our public
councils. They are the hope and reliance of
the nation in all times of trial, and in all great
exigencies.

And are they to receive all the needed qualifi-
cations in their own sphere, for the discharge of
their high duties? Iam sure, Mr. President, that
this society has but an affirmative response to give
to this inquiry.

The higher grades of instruction must necessarily
be provided, not in stinted, and measured, and in
few and poorly endowed schools—they must _ bear
some proportion to the number, character and
wealth of those for whom they are designed.—
They must sustain and elevate the character of
the class for whose benefit they are provided. If
we take any pattern from the training in other
seminaries, we shall have an enlarged system of
education for the mind and for the body. We
shall cultivate both together, and having all the
appliances for that cultivation, we shall expect
them to produce their desired results. It will be
in vain to look for the accomplishment. of this
object from ordinary operations in similar cases.

The aid of the state is to be invoked, and all that
is necessary to give permanence and efficiency to

14

the institution should be provided from the public
treasury.

The laboring classes sustain all others. The
fruit of their toil is the wealth of the nation.
Our commerce—our manufactories, are equally
dependent upon them.

They may truly be termed the life blood of the
nation. Is the vital fluid in a healthy condition—
the whole body is full of life. Is it corrupted—
the whole body is covered with ulcers and ready
for decay. Can that which is thus vital be de-
graded, and yet the interests dependent thereon
not be affected? It is impossible!

The future of our nation, it is difficult to pre-
dict. There are from time to time complications
in the body politic, which for the moment seem
threatening, but they disappear with the occasion
which gave them birth. And so must it be while
the masses of our farmers are well instructed,
not only in their pure, elevating and nobie profes-
sion, but in all their duties as American citizens. -

May I be permitted to congratulate this society
upon their progress and success in the establish-
ment of their Agricultural College—upon its loca-
tion in one of those fairy spots of which there are
so many in this state, and upon the prospects
opening before them for its usefulness, and may I
be permitted to suggest that it will for a long time
require fostering support, and a eenerous and liberal
patronage. These, I doubt not, it will receive, and
that its blessings will be largely felt and fully ap-
preciated by the citizens of this great state.

15

It is gratifying to me also to state, that Pennsyl-
vania intends to compete with New York for the
honor of the best endowed and most beneficial
farmer’s school.

She too is advancing rapidly in her preparation
for giving dignity and honor to farm labor. With
these two great states going side by side in this
noble work, what may not be hoped for? In vain
will the influences which tend to degrade labor
attempt to pass these boundaries.

This ‘‘ Cordon Sanitaire”? can not be passed by
any feeling, which, degrading labor, necessarily
degrades man. I have confined this view of the
subject to farm labor, but it is not necessarily thus
confined. :

The system of education adapted to farmers,
will with little exception, be adapted to the wants
of mechanics and artisans.

The practical in education will form the basis.
That which instructs in arts and in science in its
most extended sense, will necessarily be furnished,
and the artisan equally with the farmer needs that
education. .

Tam no advocate for making the work-shop a
college, and of apprenticing in that college, those
who are to be the practical handicrafts-men of our
country, but it would be rank injustice to exclude
them from that education, which a liberal govern-
ment should provide equally for all

The avenue should be opened broad and wide,
and then all who choose may enter.

16

I have already suggested that farmers ought to
be more frequently in our national and state coun-
cils, and yet their habitual diffidence, their love of
home, and their aversion to political life, are very
likely to keep them in retirement. But at home
they hold the control of the government, and they
have only to draw their check on the public
treasury and it would not be protested.

If your college needs a hundred thousand dol-
lars to begin with, your farmers have but to order
the money appropriated and it will be found. Let
your society and the county ‘societies but once
earnestly take the matter in hand, and it will easily
be accomplished.

To whom do your state funds belong? Who
pay your taxes? Who are the most numerous
class in your state? And I may enquire, who
have been the last to be served in their great
interests from the public treasury ?

The response is at once at hand. And will this
state of things continue. Farmers must answer
NO! :

Mr. President, the problem in self-government
which this nation is now working out, is not yet
entirely solved. We have, in comparison with
other nations of the earth, barely entered upon our
existence; and although we were strong at our
birth, and our early youth gives evidence of great
power and vigor; yet looking with a proper sense
of the instruction to be derived from the history of
other nations, we can write no future for ourselves,
our course is, to a great extent, untried; we came

17

into existence upon great principles, and we must
stand and be built up upon such principles, or we
must fall; we rely upon the patriotic intelligence
of the masses. The laboring classes do, and ever
must form these masses. To give them a clear and
intelligent view of their rights, of their privileges
and immunities is to give permanence and stability
to our institutions, and to prepare us for a perpe-
tuity of those rights, which shall be a blessing to
all “the dwellers on earth.”

I shall in this connection be pardoned for saying,

that any systems of government which disparages
the producing classes, must in the end be bad
government. It will necessarily contain elements
of corruption’ and dissolution. I need not go
farther on this point than thus to state the question,
for I am sure of a hearty response to the position
that for this nation, the true policy of patriotism is
to create and multiply intelligent, well educated
laborers.
_ Ihave adverted to the influence exerted by the
fairs of this and kindred societies, but I have not
referred to the greatest and most effectual instru-
ment for elevating labor which is now, or hereafter
can be called into operation.

Our agricultural newspapers and magazines reach
numbers and produce effects which are unequaled.
Their literary character is alike creditable to their
conductors and to the farmers by whom they
are read. The great benefits flowing from their
extended circulation, is not confined to the im-
provements in agriculture, which are a sure con-

3 ‘

18

comitant of their perusal. They create and inspire
a taste for reading, enlarge the sphere of observa-
tion, and educate in literature and science a large
class who are inaccessible to other influences.
They have already taken a high place among the
scientific and literary periodicals of the day, and
may very favorably challenge a comparison with
them. They are worthy of most extended patron-
age. Their evident effect is to elevate the charac-
ter of labor.

Whoever passes through the agricultural portions
of the Eastern and Middle States will be struck
with the equal distribution of property.

Few large estates can be found—comparatively
few farmsrented. Most farms are worked by their
owners, and the mass of those owners are the edu-
cated farmers of the country. Some agricultural
paper is to be found in almost every house. Its
appearance is welcomed as weekly, or monthly,
it is delivered.

A sense of degradation in labor finds none of its
humiliating accompaniments where the well-con-
ducted farm journal is regularly perused. The
demand for a Quarterly Agricultural Review of the
high order of the best scientific and literary reviews
of this country and Europe, may not be a pressing
necessity at this moment; but may we not expect
such a periodical as soon as our colleges are found-
ed, our professorships filled and endowed.

There is certainly a field to be occupied by such
a periodical, not in place of any we now have, not
excluding one of our farm journals, nor in any way

19

interfering with their circulation; but occupying
a higher sphere, and increasing the influence and
beneficial effects of all.

Mr. President—I doubt not that our agricultural
journals have added millions to our national
wealth; and at the same time they have been
productive of happiness and enjoyment in the farm-
er’s family, giving contentment to his sons and
daughters, and a relish for labor which is beyond
all price.

Concluding this somewhat desultory address, I
may be permitted briefly to allude to the agricul-
tural interests of our nation, as connected with the
administrative portion of the government. Our
National Society is a noble institution, doing a vast
work, bringing into happy juxta position, the varied
interests of the nation.

And without in detail pointing out its prospects
for good to the whole nation, as your society is
blessing the state, I wish to commend its approach-
ing exhibition of next week, at Philadelphia, as
worthy the patronage ofall. But what place has
the great agricultural interests of the nation in the
sovernment? ‘Transcending all other interests,
furnishing a vast majority of all our exports, giving
character and influence to our commerce, we have

a trifling yearly appropriation for the purchase of
seeds, &c., and an insignificant place in a subordi-
nate division of one of our departments.

A department: of agriculture, with a vigilant

head, whose whole duties are devoted to a con-
sideration of this subject, is demanded alike by

20

the magnitude of the pecuniary interests involved :
and the number of those employed in the prosecu-
tions of those interests.

There are a variety of legislative enactments
which need constantly this supervision, and in the
details of which there should be constant reference
to facts which ought to be collated and prepared
for use in such department.

Scarce a treaty of commerce is made in which
agricultural interests are not involved, and for the
want of such accurate and careful knowledge as
can only be acquired by continual research and
study, those interests it is believed in some cases
have been sacrificed, and in others have not been
so advanced as they might have been. I would
not be understood as disparaging in the least, the —
work which has been done through the Patent Of-
fice for the introduction of choice seeds and plants,
and the collecting and diffusing of varied and im-
portant experience and knowledge. I appreciate
it most fully and in common with my brother
farmers, am grateful for it.

But what is the influence of American Agricul-
ture upon the commerce of the world? Where
can a better provision be made for its extension ?
What reciprocity treaties can be made with other
nations opening a market for our surplus? What
present restrictions can be removed or compensated _
for by removing similar restrictions from the pro-
ducts of the country imposing them ?

These are questions only to be answered by a
mind devoted to this one subject at home and

21

abroad, and which will have the responsibility of
these great interests laidupon it. A voice in the
treaty making power is demanded by larger con-
siderations than I have suggested. It may be al-
leged that all departments of the government are
interested in this great subject, and that being
regarded as the most important of all the subjects
of legislation and protection, it is always cared for.
IT only answer that the old maxim is applicable in
its full force, ‘‘ that what is every body’s business
is nobody’s business.”

It will be vain to object that it will increase the
expenses of the government, or, that it will com-
plicate the administration and add to the numbers
of the cabinet. The farmers furnish the money,
and instead of complicating and contusing, it will
relieve the department of the interior, still leaving
in that department enough to occupy the mind and
employ the energies of any ordinary man. No
valid objection can be urged against the establish-
ment of sucha department, and it is only necessary
that the united voices of our farmers shall be heard
in Washington to produce this very important end.
Some time since, when this subject was discussed
ata meeting of the National Society, it was objected
that the department of Agriculture would neces-
sarily be filled by a politician, as were the other
branches of government, and that the interests of
agriculture would thereby greatly suffer. This ob-
jection was urged by an influential senator, but
although the source of the objection was high, the

22

objection itself has no validity. In all the parties
into which the country has ever been divided, there
have been found well-qualified, patriotic men, who
would command the confidence of the community, —
and who would devote to the objects of their office,
all the requisite talent, industry and skill, and it is
not true, that because they might belong to one or
another party, they would fail in fidelity to the
duties required of them.

With agricultural contributions to the wealth of
nations of more than fifteen hundred millions of
dollars per year, the interests of which blend with
every other interest of the world, it is not asking
too much, to demand a department of agriculture,
as an obligation of government, as a right the
granting of which is not longer to be deferred.

Mr. President and Gentlemen—The cause of ag-
ricultural labor is the cause of our common hu-
manity. The onward progress of civilization, of
arts, of science, and of all that elevates and adorns
society, essentially depends upon its character and
the estimate in which it is held. In all the Free
States, it sends its contributions of members and
influence to every avocation and profession.’ It
claims support. It demands honor. It is to be
protected and defended against all assaults, either
from an aristocratic pride and feeling at home, or
from degrading servile influences from abroad Its
fruits of industry require the protecting, fostering
and expanding care of the government. Its hardy
youth demand all those appliances of education

23

which shall amply qualify them for fulfilling their
duties as farmers and carrying out their obligations
as American citizens—and our mission—the mis-
sion of this and affiliated societies, will not be
ended until these objects are accomplished.

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