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by natural causes, our soil is fitted originally with all the necessary 

 properties for vegetable productions, and from the immense quantities of 

 virgin soil constantly being brought into a state of cultivation and im- 

 provement by the hardy sons of toil, in all parts of our extensive coun- 

 try, our agricultural products are so large, that we entirely overlook the 

 necessity of retaining the natural fertility of our soils, or of increasing 

 the aggregate amount of our products. 



The consequence is, we have lost at least half a century in agricultural 

 progress ; and although we have outstripped the nations of the old world 

 in many branches of science, yet in agriculture we are far behind them. 



Still I hazard the assertion, that no nation has originated more new 

 ideas in relation to the science of Agriculture than our own, but owing to 

 the want of popular s}Tnpathy, and a fountain head charged with the 

 duty of collecting and distributing information to stimulate and encour- 

 age enterprise and experiment, thus drawing to a common centre the re- 

 sults of individual skill and observation, and thence difFusingf them 

 throughout the length and breadth of our extended country, these valu- 

 able ideas have been neglected, and in a measure lost. 



Compared with other nations, what has America done for the cause 

 of Agriculture ? 



There are in Europe upwards of three hundred and fifty schools and 

 colleges, exclusively agricultural, even despotic Russia has sixty-eight 

 schools of Agriculture, while in the United States, not a single Institu- 

 tion of the kind exists ! 



By the late census of 1850, it appears that the people of these United 

 States have invested ^552,705,238 in domestic animals; and yet, if a 

 young man about to engage in stock-growing, wishes to study the anat- 

 omy of the horse or any other animal, there is not a museum in all 

 America where this can be done ! 



No man supposes for an instant, that we can learn the anatomy and 

 physiology of man from books. No, we must make dissections, we must 

 have occular demonstrations, and valuable museums, to illustrate all parts 

 of the system both in a healthy and a diseased condition. 



And just in proportion to the importance of the subject, the one is as 

 necessary as the other. We have in this country over thirty millions of 

 sheep, and between five and six millions of cows which yield us the pro- 

 duct of the dairy. Will any reasonable man say that a knowledge of 

 all this living machinery can be of no value to the country ? Shall we 

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