Is it possible to automate FTP in Terminal?
The easier way to do this is with wget. For example:

Ian-Cs-MacBook-Pro:ianc ian$ wget ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
--2011-08-02 19:48:00--  ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/welcome.msg
           =&gt; `welcome.msg'
Resolving gnjilux.cc.fer.hr... 161.53.74.67
Connecting to gnjilux.cc.fer.hr|161.53.74.67|:21... connected.
Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
==&gt; SYST ... done.    ==&gt; PWD ... done.
==&gt; TYPE I ... done.  ==&gt; CWD not needed.
==&gt; SIZE welcome.msg ... 1462
==&gt; PASV ... done.    ==&gt; RETR welcome.msg ... done.
Length: 1462 (1.4K) (unauthoritative)

100% [======================================================================================================================================================================================================================================&gt;] 1,462       --.-K/s   in 0s      

2011-08-02 19:48:03 (63.4 MB/s) - `welcome.msg' saved [1462]


wget supports options to supply a user name (--user=user) and password (--password=password) if anonymous FTP access isn't available. And a --quiet mode so it's cron-friendly and doesn't fill up your local inbox without messages for successful downloads.