212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the great leading interest of this state and country. Thought, 

 science, investigation, labor, must all be pressed into active and 

 intense service to accomplish great results ; but with these active 

 foixes, all working in the right direction, all centred in the one 

 desirable point of discovery in this age of discoveries, 'who will 

 set bounds to the possible or even probable results ? The great 

 want of successful agriculture to-day is plant-food. Lands we 

 have, cheap and abundant — improved implements, and all the 

 physicial forces for success ; but our labors are circumscribed by 

 this great want. The question now with the farmer is, how great 

 a breadth can I find dressing for ? This want has been measurea- 

 bly supplied by concentrated manures, superphosphates and the 

 like, but only measurably supplied. A void remains unfilled even 

 by these expedients. 



I have a theory, or better said, perhaps, a hobby, upon this sub- 

 ject, which is, that chemical analysis is yet to discover this plant 

 food now so earnestly demanded by our worn-out lands, and that 

 this discovery is to come through investigations stimulated by 

 these agricultural colleges. My reasoning is this, — that history 

 and observation verify the great fact, that whatever is absolutely 

 necessary for the sustenance, comfort and happiness of man, has 

 either as the result of discovery or invention, always in due time 

 appeared. To illustrate : when our forests were so far destroyed 

 that they ceased to supply an absolute want, that of fuel, coal ap- 

 peared ; when the scattered remnants of the whales fled northward 

 to the Polar Sea for protection — we bored into the earth for light 

 and found it there. When hand labor became insufficient to sup- 

 ply the increased population with clothing, the spinning jenny and 

 cotton gin came in, and later the sewing machine. Increased 

 breadth of agriculture brought in the reaper and mower. The in- 

 creased demands of trade and commerce, the steam engine, and 

 the successful workings of these forces, created another demand 

 — supplied by the electric telegraph. These examples, gentlemen, 

 are sufficient to illustrate my theory. I argue from it that a 

 kindred discovery is yet to be made to supply the absolute want 

 of more plant food, within the reach of ordinary means. 



If this theory has no other virtue, it presents an incentive to 

 labor and investigation, for I need hardly remind the young 

 gentlemen of the college present that whoever is the successful 

 discoverer will be entitled to the gratitude of the country as a 

 benefactor to his race. I am happy to learn that the prejudice 



