as a practical and hereditary farmer.  The capital he employed in expanding these operations to their culminating magnitude, he acquired by farming.  The mental culture, the generous dispositions, the refined manners, the graceful and manly bearing which made him one of the first gentlemen of the age, he acquired as a farmer.  The mansion which welcomed to its easy and large-hearted hospitalities guests of such distinction from his own and other countries, was a farmer’s home, and few ever opened their doors to more urbanity and cordial cheer.  This is an aspect of his character which all those who follow the profession he honored should admire with a laudable esprit de corps.

As a back-ground is an important element in the portraiture of human forms or natural scenery, so the ground on which the life and labors of Jonas Webb should be sketched, merits a few preliminary lines.  Of all the occupations that employ and sustain the toiling myriads of our race, agriculture leans closest to the bosom of Divine 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 enclosure of self, but are put out as new vesicles of light to brighten the general illumination of the world.