PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 359 



potash deposits of Germany, and the fossil deposits of South Caro- 

 lina, and the rock guanoes of Sombrero, Navassa, Alta Vela, and 

 numerous other islands of the Carribbean sea, and these are only 

 the faint beginnings of what will yet be found. 



Have not real wants always been supplied? Not, perhaps, 

 when we fancied them to be real, but when the time was ripe to 

 have them supplied ? When our country was young and dark 

 days had fallen upon it, did not a farmer of Virginia, surnamed 

 George, "receive a call" to lead armies to victory? And only a 

 little while ago, did not a leather dealer of Galena receive a simi- 

 lar call ? And you know what came of that. When whales run 

 scarce, petroleum began to spout, and the world is better lighted 

 this evening than when we depended on New Bedford. When our 

 country was ripe for great enterprises and enlarged business, and 

 money was needed for purposes of exchange, the gold of Califor- 

 nia was seen. It was there before Capt. Sutter's day as much as 

 since ; but not while that land was under the heel of a despotic 

 hierarchy — not until the Mexican Jesuit had departed, was it found 

 and used. So on this side of the continent. The scientific min- 

 eralogists of South Carolina had collected numerous specimens of 

 the fossil coprolites, abundant near Ashley river, and stored them 

 in their college cabinets years ago ; and their scientific chemists 

 had looked at them ; and the people had dug them out for road 

 material and for sidewalks, counting them of equal value with salt 

 which had lost its savor, fit neither to put on the land, nor into the 

 compost heap, but only to be trodden under foot. Why was this? 

 Simply because "their eyes were holden." The moment slavery 

 went out and free labor came in, "their eyes were opened." Now, 

 we see clearly that a region large enough for the abode of millions 

 is to be redeemed and made fertile as a garden by their agency. 



Such events lead the way for the reception of truth ; first, natu- 

 ral truths, then spiritual truths. A few years ago a college Profes- 

 sor of Northern birth was driven out of South Carolina for saying 

 that the real want of that State was "manure, not secession." 

 To-day that saying would be deemed the expression of a fact too 

 obvious to need utterance in words. 



Adjourned to Thiirsday morning. 



