342 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



be so perfected and applied that we can carry back to the soil ex- 

 actly what we take from it, save only these very bodies of ours, 

 which we may permit for a few years to rest in the cemetery, 

 when in due time, they themselves 'shall go back to the soil. 

 " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." They will not 

 rest useless, but in form of ammonia and bone phosphate must go 

 back to the soil, in the same way that we carry back that derived 

 from the slaughtered cattle. "The earth is the Lord's and the 

 fullness thereof," and the system of agriculture that does not strike 

 deep enough to reach that idea does not strike deep enough to 

 prosper for any great length of time. The blasting breath of 

 the Almighty has come down upon those nations which have 

 violated these principles, as witness some of the older nations and 

 some portions of our own land, where negroes and tobacco have been 

 sent off the land until it is comparatively worthless. In the 

 future, therefore, of agriculture, these young men are to take up 

 just such ideas as I am giving you, and become the masters of 

 them ; to become the teachers of the people besides indoctrinating 

 them with the principles of natural history applied to the produc- 

 tion of food for useful ends ; namely, raising moral, upright, 

 Christian men and women, so that the life shall not be thrown 

 away after it has succeeded to this inheritance. 



Now, gentlemen, I have reached one great practical end, "Uto- 

 pian" you will say, "looking forward to the millennium, when 

 all things are to be perfect, and there is to be no more trouble ?" 

 Not at all, in the sense in which some will derisively speak of it. 

 But I recognize before me intelligent men and women, who are 

 living for a purpose, living for a definite end, clearly marking out 

 for themselves what they will attain to ; and just as soon as they 

 take this matter home to their own firesides and thoughtfully con- 

 sider it there, every man and woman will say " Right." 



Now let us be a little more practical about it. In what way 

 can we apply physics to the improvement of the soil, or to bring 

 about these ends ? First, let us take mechanics, to illustrate. 

 The soi] may be improved by simple tillage. I heard two of 

 these practical common-sense farmers talking this evening, and 

 they said tliat the more land was plowed the better it was. 

 That is perfectly scientific ; it is perfectly practical. But what 

 are you doing when you plow a field but applying the principles 

 of natural philosophy ? That is to say, do not the principles of 

 natural philosophy find their expressioii in the instrument with 



