Providence. It is an industry bound to the great and beautiful
economics of the creation by more visible and sensible ties than any
other worked by human hands. We will not here diverge to dwell upon
these high and interesting affiliations. In their place we will
give them a little extended thought. There is one feature of
agricultural enterprize, however, that should not be overlooked in
this connection. All its operations are above-board and open to the
wide world, just like the fields to which they are applied. Nothing
here is under lock and key. Nothing bears the grim warning over the
bolted door, "No admittance here except on business!"--meaning by
business, exclusively and sharply, the buying of certain wares of
the establishment at a good round profit to the manufacturer,
without carrying away a single scintillation or suggestion of his
skill. If he has invented or adopted machinery or a process of
labor which enables him to turn out cheap muslin at three farthings'
less cost per yard than his neighbors can make it, he seals up the
secret from them with the keenest vigilance. Not so in the great
and heaven-honored industry of agriculture. Its experiments and
improvements upon the earth's face are all put into the common stock
of human knowledge and happiness. They can no more be placed under
lock and key, as selfish secrets, than the stars themselves that
look down upon them with all their golden eyes. No new implement of
husbandry, no new mechanical force or chemical principle, no new
process of labor or line of economy is withheld from the great
commonwealth of mankind. As the broad skies above, as the sun and
moon, and stars, as the winds, the rains, the dews, the birds and
bees of heaven over-ride and ignore, in their missions, the
boundaries of jealous nations, so all the great activities of
agriculture prove their lineage by following the same generous rule.
They are bounded by no nationalities. They are shut up in no narrow