PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. . 349 



What would you do, at this day, if you undertook to market the 

 products of Maine as our grandfathers and grandmothers used to 

 market them, — hanging a goose on one side of a horse and half a 

 bushel of beans on the other, and starting for Hallowell or Port- 

 land ? Think of the idea ! No ; science has brought to our relief 

 other means, and we now avail ourselves of them. I have no 

 doubt that many of you to whom I speak now remember very well 

 that when railroads were first talked of many held back strongly 

 and stoutly, and asked, " What will become of all our horses ? If 

 our stages and wagons are to be superseded, and we are not going 

 to Boston or Portland by stage, and are not going to send our 

 produce there by wagon and get our freights back in the same 

 way, what is to be done with all the horses we use in that line of 

 business ?" Here is a man who tells you that with a few buckets 

 of water and a little wood he will transport three hundred tons to 

 Boston, and you ask, " What is to become of all our horses?" 

 When a principle is brought to us and made clear and plain, we 

 should be the men to walk up and take that principle to the extent 

 of our ability, and apply it to our business, in order that we may 

 advance. 



In the olden time, people used to get along pretty well for 

 artificial light by setting fire to a pine stick, and putting it in the 

 chimney. They used to sit down by its light and read and think. 

 Thank God for the men who did that ! They and their brains. 

 They wrought out theories, and experimented upon them, and 

 made them practical, and we to-day enjoy the benefit of their 

 thought and labor. But we cannot put up with pine torches 

 now ; we turn a little stop-cock, and light the gas, which God 

 locked up, thousands of years ago, in the coal, and which science 

 has distilled out and applied to our uses to-night. Water brought 

 to a city like this from a distant spring on the back of a donkey 

 would be better than no water at all, but you cannot stop for that 

 now. Bring in the aid of science, let the water pipe bring it to 

 your houses, distribute it to all your apartments, and when you 

 want it, turn your faucets, and there is your water. Lotus apply 

 principles in this way to the development of the soil, so that labor 

 shall be abbreviated ; we shall then understand the necessity of 

 feeding the brain as well as the stomach, (a very beautiful and true 

 idea that is); we shall be relieved from this heavy drudgery of man- 

 ual labor, and there will be a chance to feed, develop, and enlighten 

 the brain, so that the two things shall be balanced ; the muscles 



