No. 63.J 289 



appreciate the value of happiness. It is then that the spoils of na- 

 ture are demanded to increase their comforts; that they are drawn 

 with more or less reluctance from the mine, the forest, the ocean and 

 the air; that improvement follows on improvement; that the arts of 

 life become perfected, and beneficial discoveries that promote a com- 

 mon brotherhood among nations and communities are interchanged; 

 sectional and national jealousies are dispelled; the collisions of intel- 

 lect minister to his individuality and independence, and bring into ac- 

 tive exercise all his higher and nobler faculties. These considera- 

 tions induce us respectfully to suggest whether it would not be a no- 

 ble object for a government like that of New-York, designed as it is 

 for the happiness and the increase of her population, to drain the mo- 

 rasses and marshes that disfigure so large an extent of her otherwise 

 productive surface. In the county of Cayuga alone, myriads of hu- 

 man beings might be profitably maintained upon lands that are now the 

 abodes of noxious insects and filthy reptiles, as well as the sources of 

 pestilence and the origin of emigration. The health of the surround- 

 ing country would amply repay the expense; the value of the land 

 that is now productive would be trebly enhanced; while that which 

 is unproductive and uninhabitable, under the agency of an active, hap- 

 py and cheerful people, would probably repay the expense in a single 

 year. If we may make any estimate from the ditching and embank- 

 ing of the islands in the Delaware, below Philadelphia, a million of 

 dollars expended under the direction of a competent engineer, would 

 do more for New-York than a like sum in any enlargement of her ca- 

 nals. 



EDUCATION, AGRICULTURE, Etc. 



BY ALEXANDER WALSH. 



It has been well and wisely said, '' Honor to the man who makes 

 a blade of grass grow where grass grew not before." If this be the 

 just meed of the meritorious individual, should it not be liberally ex- 

 tended to the associated many — to the deserving nation? Honor 

 then to the New-York State Agricultural and Horticultural Society: 

 honor to the State which countenances and sustains it. 



" Excelsior" is the motto of our State: independence is the boast 

 of our people. Is this a mockery, or is it a reality? Is our superior 

 excellence to aim no higher than the possession of some tawdry bau- 

 ble; is our boast to reach but to the semiperfection of some minor 

 art calculated to degrade rather than to elevate an aspiring communi- 

 ty? More than this is our aim, more than this is our end. 



The New York State Agricultural Society is the guardian patron 

 of the arts and sciences generally, but in an especial manner does it 

 devote itself to the most indispensible of all arts, the most compre- 



[Senate No. 63.] M* 



