575 



Will you refer us to the writings of the ancients as the standard of 

 human wisdom? Then to give us your beau ideal of the human coun- 

 tenance, present us a mummy from the Egyptian catacombs. 



T speak not of spiritual matters nor of what pertains to the welfare 

 of man in a future and higher state of existence ; and though I freely 

 admit that these subjects have superior claims to your attention, they 

 are not within my province. I must confine myself, for the present, to 

 a humbler sphere — to matters which pertain to the material welfare of 

 our race — to the contemplation of fticts and the stem realities of every 

 day life. And for the promotion of these material interests and im- 

 provement in the arts of production, we must look mainly to the natu- 

 ral sciences. And here I have a word to say to the farmei-s. I shall 

 not flatter; truth is more important, though sometimes less gi-ateful 

 than flattery. While agriculture was the earliest, is the most indispen- 

 sable, and the most important branch of human industry, as well from 

 the numbers engaged in it, as from the fact that every other branch is 

 dependent upon it — yet truth compels me to say, its principles are lea^t 

 understood by the great mass of those devoted to its pui-suit. It has 

 profited less by the experience of the past, and the discoveries and im- 

 provements of the present, and is far behind every other department of 

 industry in the general march of improvement. The principal improve- 

 ments which have taken place in agriculture, and of which farmers 

 generally have availed themselves, are those cx)ntributed by other de- 

 partments of industry, mechanical inventions, and improvements in the 

 tools and implements with which the mere mechanical labor of agri- 

 culture is performed. The farmers have not elevated agriculture to a 

 science by the study of its principles. They have depended toe much 

 upon chance, upon conjecture and unsystematic obsen'^ation and experi- 

 ment; neglecting the first principles upon which agriculture, as a sci- 

 ence, is based — the nature and chemical constituents of the soil, the 

 chemical composition of plants, and the nature and principles of vege- 

 table growth. Some, it is true, have made themselves acquainted with 

 these first principles, and are reaping the benefit, in increased produc- 

 tion of crops, and improved fertility of their soils ; and it is a cheering 

 sign of the times, that this species of knowledge is beginning to be ap- 

 preciated. To elevate agriculture to the dignity of a science, it is es- 

 sential to know, first, the chemical constituents of the vegetable which 



