2S6 [Senate 



yet admit that the manipulations of husbandry will ever continue to be 

 the fountain from whence production flows. " By the sweat of thy face 

 shalt thou eat bread;" and it is of more importance, and requires a high- 

 er order of intellect, to direct these energies, to evolve these forces, and 

 adjust them for the accomplishment of good, than to indulge ourselves 

 in the most abstruse speculations and refined inquiries. Men of sci- 

 ence too, are so accustomed to look among remote and recondite cau- 

 ses for a solution of phenomena, they are so accustomed among the 

 multiplication of books to read, that they scarcely give themselves 

 time to think; they forget in this mass of labor, that they have the 

 book of nature open; that they are perpetually invited to " explore 

 the wondrous work," 



" An institute of laws eternal ; whose unaltered page 

 " No time can change, no copier can corrupt." 



And thus in tracing the progress of things from the time that the 

 earth was the abode of reptilia, they have passed unnoticed the sim- 

 ple fact, that siccation, or an increase of dryness on its surface, has 

 been exactly proportioned to an increase of the human species, and 

 to the multiplication of their enjoyments. This observation may not 

 apply to arid deserts or to tropical climates, as Egypt or Chili, where 

 rain seldom falls in summer; but even here, drains and canals are ne- 

 cessary to fertility; and had it not been for the simple observation of a 

 slave, all the learning of the stagyrite would scarcely have invented so 

 useful, so simple a machine for conveying off the cause of sterility as a 

 drain. If we trace the history of the changes alluded to, from the 

 time our planet was the abode of the Saurian family, to the period 

 when a higher order of beings assumed a control over it, and vegeta- 

 tion began to give it its present beautiful aspect, we shall find that 

 marine and aquatic animals have graduall}'^ disappeared, and their pla- 

 ces have been supplied, first by amphibious, and afterwards by more 

 aerified organizations. The same fact is abundantly illustrated in the 

 history of our own race — the gardens of Columella, indeed all Cam- 

 pania, were drained and cultivated until it furnished more for the sup- 

 ply of the neighboring city than any other portion of Italy; now the 

 water stagnates upon the villa of Lucullus; and it is made " a habit- 

 ation for bitterns and owls." Ceesar describes what are now the most 

 beautiful and highly cultivated regions of the earth as serbonian bogs 

 and impenetrable marshes, in which the objects of his pursuit frequent- 

 ly took refuge. Holland, Zealand, Flanders, England, and even the 

 mountainous districts of Scotland are reclaimed by this simple pro- 

 cess of draining from comparative wastes; and while scientific and 

 practical husbandry have combined to establish the principle that dry 

 land is far more productive than wet; while every man of ordinary 

 intelligence or of the slightest observation sees the difference; irri- 

 gation is practiced, and draining neglected to an extent that in this 

 country is little less than criminal; nay more, the former is recom- 

 mended, and often upon high authority recommended by men who 

 can see that in all the changes made by organic upon inorganic mat- 

 ter, from the operation of the coral insect to the labor of mammalia, 



