“I do not know that the honorable Senator owns, or ever did own, in separate proprietorship, any acres of land,—that he ever held the plough, or ‘drove the team a-field’; I do not know whether he intends to enlighten us with regard to the care and culture of our homesteads and our farms; but I do know that he understands the farmer’s ‘duty to his land,’ in the secondary and higher sense to which allusion has been made,—that, looking over our wide country, our rich heritage, and heritage of our fathers, he has been ever diligent and untiring in his endeavors to remove its deformities, to augment its fertility, and to crown it with beauty.
“To which department of farming the Senator will direct his remarks I know not; but, whatever his topic, I submit without fear his words of instruction and of eloquence to the ordeal of your verdict.
“I have the honor to introduce to you the Hon. Charles Sumner.”
Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:—
I cannot forget the first time that I looked upon this beautiful valley, where river, meadow, and hill contribute to the charm. It was while a youth in college. With several of my classmates I made a pedestrian excursion through Massachusetts. Starting from Cambridge, we passed, by way of Sterling and Barre, to Amherst, where, arriving weary and footsore, we refreshed ourselves at the evening prayer in the College Chapel. From Amherst we walked to Northampton, and then, ascending Mount Holyoke, saw the valley of the Connecticut spread out before us, with river of silver winding through meadows of gold. It was a scene of enchantment, and time has not weakened the impression it made. From Northampton we walked to Deerfield, sleeping near Bloody Brook, and then to Greenfield, where we turned off by Coleraine through dark woods and over hills to Bennington in Vermont. The whole excursion was deeply interesting, but no part more so than your valley. Since then I have been a traveller at home and abroad, but I know no similar scene of greater beauty. I have seen the meadows of Lombardy, and those historic rivers, the Rhine and the Arno, and that stream of Charente, which Henry the Fourth called the most beautiful of France,—also those Scottish rivers so famous in legend and song, and the exquisite fields and sparkling waters of Lower Austria; but my youthful joy in the landscape which I witnessed from the neighboring hill-top has never been surpassed in any kindred scene. Other places are richer in the associations of history; but you have enough already in what Nature has done, without waiting for any further illustration.
It is a saying of Antiquity, often quoted: “Oh, too fortunate husbandmen, if they only knew their blessings!”[135] Nowhere are these words more applicable than to this neighborhood, where Nature has done so much, and where all that Nature has done is enhanced by an intelligent and liberal spirit. An eminent French writer, one of the greatest of his country, who wrote in the middle of the last century, when France was a despotism, Montesquieu, has remarked in his “Spirit of Laws,” that “countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but in proportion to their liberty.”[136] A beautiful truth. But here in this valley are both. Where is there greater fertility? where is there truer liberty?
If the farmers of our country needed anything to stimulate pride in their vocation, it would be found in the statistics furnished by the national census. That of 1860 is not yet prepared, and I go back to that of 1850. Here it appears, that, out of the whole employed population of the United States over fifteen years of age, two millions four hundred thousand, or forty-four per cent, were engaged in agricultural pursuits, while the total number engaged in commerce, trade, manufactures, mechanic arts, and mining was only one million six hundred thousand, or about thirty per cent. These figures show an immense predominance of the agricultural interest in the whole country. Of course in Massachusetts the commercial and manufacturing interests are relatively larger than in other parts of the country. But our farmers are numerous.
This same census shows, that, in 1850, the four largest staples of our country, ranking them according to their nominal value, were: Indian corn, two hundred and ninety-six million dollars; wheat, one hundred million dollars; cotton, ninety-eight million dollars; hay, ninety-six million dollars. These figures, of course, are familiar, but they are so instructive that they will bear repetition. Besides illustrating the magnitude of our agricultural interests, they shed new light on the lofty pretensions that have been made for King Cotton. There is no crown for hay, or wheat, or Indian corn, and yet two of these stand above cotton. But the whole table testifies to the power of the farmer.
From another quarter are statistics showing how agricultural pursuits favor longevity. Out of seventeen hundred persons, the average life of farmers was forty-five years; of merchants, thirty-three years; of mechanics, twenty-nine years; and of laborers, twenty-seven years. Thus length of days seems to be an agricultural product.