No. 112.] 25 



or its lingering vestiges are preserved to advance the arts of civil- |i 

 izatioU; or to adorn the abodes of educated men. Here is to be 

 seen a flourishing city and on every side are to be witnessed 

 beautiful villages, the spires of churches and the institutions of 

 learning. The products of civilized skill, no longer regarded as 

 curiosities, are produced by hundreds of manufacturing establish- 

 ments situated along the margins of our streams, producing fabrics 

 then unknown, by machinery which man's ingenuity had not yet 

 devised. Trade no longer struggles against the current of yonder 

 river in small canoes, but a commerce is carried through this 

 valley on our canals, that in extent, value and tonage is nearly if 

 not quite equal to the whole foreign commerce of the United 

 States. Intelligence is no longer communicated by uncertain ru- 

 mor; it flashes like lightning along the telegraphic line and the 

 traveller instead of following Indian trails through dark and dense 

 forests, is borne along on roads of iron, by engines impelled by 

 fire and steam. And on this day, on a spot which seventy years 

 since was mainly possessed by savages, whose only pursuits were 

 war and the chase, we are met for the purpose of advancing agri- 

 culture, man's most peaceful pursuit, and we see here assembled 

 a greater number of able bodied men than the United States could 

 bring into the field -A any period during the revolutionary struggle. 



The occasion makes it proper for me, in speaking of the progress 

 of our country, to confine my remarks to considerations connected 

 with agriculture; and if I mistake not, the present is a period of 

 . great interest in the history of that pursuit. It is an era which 

 will work changes of a radical nature in the principles of conduct- 

 ing husbandry, alft'Cting not only the extent and cliaracter of the 

 productions of the earth, but al-o involving changes in the do- 

 mestic habits and degree of intelligence necessary to those engaged 

 in the cultivation of the soil. It the views I shall submit to you 

 are correct, they are certainly of great importance asalfecting the 

 condition of the most numerous and important class of our citizens. 

 Periods of domestic and industrial changes are not {»f course, dis- 

 tinctly defined. They are in their nature gradual and in a State 

 so extensive and so variel in condition as ours, their progress 

 will be unequal in dillerent sections. I shall assume however 



