344 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



study, the position which he took, and the general power that he 

 had over his associates, that he will be one of the men who will 

 always be ready to experiment to bring about these results. 

 Indeed, I have no doubt that the college is intrusted to just the 

 proper hands to receive these results, so far as may be in the pres- 

 ent condition of things. 



What, then, is to be the future of agriculture ? I have told you 

 what we have at present. We have natural history applied, — nat- 

 ural history in its imperfectly developed condition, and the natural 

 sciences in their imperfectly developed condition. In the future, 

 then, of agriculture, if it is to grow out of the present, I think I 

 see something like this : In every community, somebody to whom 

 the great mass of agriculturists may go, who is shedding light 

 upon all these matters. The object of the farmer is to procure 

 food, first, for his own sustenance and that of his animals ; secondly, 

 to develop and maintain the proper, honest and just relation of 

 agriculture to those other pursuits, without which he himself will 

 fail ; and thirdly, to look beyond his own country, to look abroad 

 into other countries, where his products go, and develop and main- 

 tain just, proper, friendly and rigliteous relations with them ; and 

 as primarily the sustenance of man comes from the earth, and as 



« 



all things go back to it sooner or later, so it seems entirely proper 

 that he should make provision that they should go back in the right 

 places, to be most available to those cities in this country, located 

 as the Almighty has located them, and those towns across the 

 water, located as they are, that all may get their portion in due 

 time. 



I see also in the future instead of the bone and muscle that do 

 most of the hard work of farming at the present time, mechanics ap- 

 plied, in the form of labor-saving machines, steam engines, and the 

 like, that will take the place of sweating animals and toiling mus- 

 cles, and so a great gain of time will be secured, which may be 

 applied to the study of those conditions, a knowledge of which we 

 all feel that we want to-day. 



If it has been the pleasure of the Almighty to place us in the 

 condition we now occupy, there is no need our being at all 

 frightened about these conditions being too hard for us. On the 

 contrary, we develop ourselves when we develop the resources 

 of nature. The two things go hand in hand, and the best results 

 are to be secured by that system which is furthest and widest 

 reaching in all its relations. 



