92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



While the farm furnishes many instances o£ this class of worth- 

 less things, the farm beyond any other place, gives opportunity to 

 utilize raw material of this sort. No work-shop in the world can 

 compare with soil in its power to work up all forms of material. 

 Nothing that will burn or decay is worthless upon the farm. Our 

 New England soil is like a factory with abundant power, and 

 plenty of willing workers, asking at our hands the material to 

 work up into articles of value for our use. These workers help 

 themselves as far as they can. They tear the solid rock to pieces 

 and wrench from the inert material all that their povv^er will ena- 

 ble them to get. They gather from the atmosphere all that their 

 outstretched hands can grasp. But it is not enough for them, and 

 anything which has once before been made up is in the best possi- 

 ble shape for them to use, and is very welcome. Pity, isn't it, that 

 anything of this kind should be withheld, when they are so willing 

 and able to use it ? 



That class of things which owe their seeming worthlessness to 

 our own ignorance must be a large one. "We can form some idea 

 of it from the things whose uses have been discovered within a 

 brief period. The elastic gum of a tropical tree formed, not long 

 since, a sort of toy, handy to erase a pencil mark with, but of value 

 so slight that its loss would hardly have been felt at all. Imagine 

 if you can the consequences if now rubber goods were stricken out 

 of existence. It would occasion a catastrophe of large proportions 

 in trade and manufacturing, and bring a sense of privation to well 

 nigh every household in the civilized world. The varied uses of 

 electricity recently discovered, and by no means fully known as 

 yet, have changed its position in the thought of men, from a mere 

 curiosity, to one of the most efficient agents whose services are at 

 our command. The discovery of new uses for things akeady in 

 some degree serviceable, is in the same line of worth-giving, and 

 points the direction in which we must look for a remedy in many 

 cases of apparent worthlessness. 



We must extend the field of our knowledge. It must cover 

 more ground and be more thoroughly cultivated. The function 

 of the human element in the world is to discover and develop 

 value in things. And this is work which may give employment 

 to the noblest powers. To study the nature of things, and learn 

 their uses and the service which they can render, and then so to 

 adjust surrounding conditions that the beneficent action may take 



