STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 15 



justify the conclusion that the proximate cause of their decline was the 

 desuetude and disrepute into which husbandry fell among them. The 

 conquests of less civilized but more warlike tribes degraded tillage from 

 a noble to a menial pursuit, destroyed extensive H3^stems of canals and 

 other artificial contrivances for irrigation, discouraged productive indus- 

 tr}'' by greed}' extortions and the insecurit}' of property, and by all the 

 wretched means which usually attend conquest and subjugation compelled 

 the general abandonment of field labor, and insured the prevalence of 

 starvation, and the gradual but sure degradation and waste of population. 



The density and vigor of the population of China and Japan are suf- 

 ficient proof that mortality is not a condition, but an accident of national 

 existence. It is indeed possible that these venerable empires will pass 

 under foreign control; but the most fervent disciple of the " manifest 

 destiny'' school cannot anticipate the period when these full-lifed nations 

 will cease to exist, or cease to retain their national characteristics. Yet, 

 a single cause would have prepared for them a historj' as gloomy and 

 an eclipse as total as awaited Egypt and the old empires of Mesopo- 

 tamia. The lack of the art of fertilization would have left their soil 

 desert, and their plains citiless. This art we are just beginning scientifi- 

 cally to understand, though as yet we are guiltless of any very general 

 and efficacious use of our knowledge ; with them it has been cherished 

 for many centuries. Living within themselves, with few or none of the 

 advantages of large foreign markets, they escaped the too common dis- 

 advantages of such markets. They retained all the matter gathered, 

 from their fields, and restored it in a much improved form to those fields 

 again. If they cut oft^ the natural supply of hunim, the debt was paid in 

 compost. Thus the earth renewed itself with its own increase, and. 

 gradually rose in capacity of production above its natural fertility. 



If you will, indulge me, the dunghill is a firmer foundation to build, 

 empires upon than mountains of etei'nal granite. China and Japan have 

 no underground sewerage; their filth runs off on human shoulders; the 

 concentrated pestilence of decay, instead of pouring its pollution into 

 neighboring rivers, is laboriously carried to the fields to spread the fat- 

 ness and bloom of Eden over ten thousand barren slopes. Wonderful 

 chemistry of nature ! Manure has furnished the ever recurring banquet 

 of one third of our race for more than twenty centuries. Ini'o and. 

 empire spring from the dunghill ! China feeds her millions upon the 

 ordure of her millions! It is the mysterious, the sublime, the universal 

 resurrection ! 



Agi'iculture is a very old art, but a young science. The tribes of 

 Canaan lived amid wheat fields and vineyards. The ancient Jews, as 

 also the Greeks, knew how to enrich the soil. Solomon and xluga^s alike 

 understood the value of composts. .Rome honored husbandry, because 

 busbandr}' yielded bread. Her little seven acre farms were tilled by the 

 noblest of her sons; Cato and Varro, Virgil and Columella, Pliny and 

 Palladius, aided it with tongue and pen; brave old Cincinnatus threw 

 the immortal lustre of his great virtues around it. Yet, in all the ages, 

 •men possessed no more than a simple knowledge of results. They drew 

 nourishment from the earth as a blind babe does from the maternal 

 breast. Toil, unrelieved by the gratification of curiosity, unennobled 

 and unsupported by glimpses of sublime interplay of the occult forces 

 marshalled in its service, and involved in its processes and results, 

 became (what it is to the ignorant of every land to-da}^) a mere delving, 

 a hai'd and harsh necessity, a cruel alternative against stai'vation. 



Chiefly since the beginning of the present century have farmers begun 



