"No nation was ever overthrown by its farmers. Chaldea and Egypt, Greece and Rome, grew rotten and ripe for destruction not in the fields, but in the nar row lanes and crowded city streets, and in the palaces of their nobility. So let us thank God and take courage as we see in our day the movement countryward, and the 'abandoned farm' and lot no longer abandoned. Surely the history of creation is repeating itself, and again is the Lord God taking man and putting him in a garden to dress it and keep it." -Dr. FRANCIS E. CLARK. "I began life as a lawyer, with a good practice in western New York. I became State Senator from one of the richest agricultural sections of that sta e; then the highest state office was bestowed upon me, and for several years I was Governor of that great state. After that I represented, in the United States Senate, the richest and most populous commonwealth in the republic; and now I am Secretary of State, holding vast power during the most momentous period of our country's history. All official honors, save one, have been proffered me. With all this experience before me, and within my own bosom, this is the happiest lot I can wish for my sons: To be owners of good farms, well stocked, out of debt, and know nobody more than ten miles from home."-SECRETARY WM H. SEWARD. A Report of the Twentieth Annual Closing Farmers' "Public prosperity is like a tree. Agriculture is its roots, industry and commerce and the tree dies." |