50 [Senate 



What are all the pecuniary difficulties so universally felt here, com- 

 pared with the sufferings of a people of which no small proportion 

 close the toils of the day with barely enough to supply its wants, 

 and without knowing where, in case of sickness or loss of employ- 

 ment, they are to find the food which will keep them alive the next 

 forty-eight hours ? 



I do not point to these comparisons to gratify the impulses of na- 

 tional vanity, but to show how much more ground we have for re- 

 newed and hopeful effort, than for that despondency which seldom 

 seizes but upon feeble uncultivated intellects. 



We have, gentlemen, other reasons for confidence in the future; 

 even for the most sanguine anticipations of the developments of com- 

 ing years. 



The application of science, the most profound which has yet been 

 attained by the far reaching efforts of the human mind, to all the 

 products of our industry, to the soil, the crop, the animal, has been 

 reserved for the age in which we live. It is not claiming too much, 

 to say, that more progress has been made in this direction within the 

 last twenty years than in any previous century. Our own country- 

 men, it is gratifying to perceive, are securing their share of this 

 abundant harvest. Our chemists and geologists will not, we may be 

 sure, rest contented as industrious gleaners after the Davies, Liebigs 

 and Johnstons of other countries, but will push forward into the am- 

 ple domains, which even those acute discoverers have not pene- 

 trated. 



From the origin of our race almost to the present time, the path 

 of the husbandman has been clouded in darkness and doubt. From 

 the sowing of the seed to the gathering of the harvest, mystery at- 

 tended every step. The first link in the great chain of cause and 

 effect was hidden in uncertainty. The precepts of tradition, the re- 

 sult of a multitude of experiments, were founded mostly in wisdom; 

 but they were as inexplicable as they were sound. Not so now. 

 The scientific analysis of soils, of manures, and of vegetable pro- 

 ducts, explains not only the workings of nature and the practices of 

 art, but opens an inexhaustible field of new combinations and novel 

 results. To spread far and wide this new light in the galaxy of hu- 

 man knowledge, is one of the objects, — I think it will be conceded 

 to be the first object, of this association. 



