204 STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tioii is broadened and lengthened, and witli them the civilizations of the re- 

 motest portions of the earth are brought into the closest alliance in the ex- 

 change of their products ; and the better portion of our civilization is infused 

 into theirs. 



But the faithful, constant servants of the farmer are to be found in nature. 

 Among them are Geology and Chemistry, the quarry of the air, tlie water of 

 the brook and lake, the electricity of the cloud, the plough of the frost. 



Long before man stood on this green ball, the sun of centuries decomposed 

 the rocks, mellowed the land, filled it with light and heat, covered it with veg- 

 etable film, then with forests. But i\ature did not expend and lavish all her 

 beauty and power on any one generation. She had great tenderness and regard 

 to the coming generations. Her magazines of power and richness and beauty 

 are inexhaustible. The eternal rocks have held undiminished and entire their 

 oxygen of lime. No particle of oxygen has rusted or become worn, but has the 

 same energy now as on the first morning. It speaks to the farmer and says, 

 " take the gas we have hoarded, mingle it with water, and let it be free to grow 

 in plants and animals, and obey the thought of man,*' 



The earth works for him and is his servant. Every plant is a manufacturer 

 of soil. The tree or plant draws on the whole air, the whole earth, and on the 

 rivers and seas, imbibing nutriment, strength and beauty; by its roots from 

 the ground, by its leaves from the air. It is the reservoir from whicli all things 

 spring, and into which they all return. The invisible and impalpable air takes 

 form and solid mass, in the plants and trees. They burn, they exhale and de- 

 compose their own bodies into the earth and air again. The earth and the ani- 

 mals burn and decompose incessantly. AVonderful mystery I And yet the ser- 

 vant of man. 



Nature is strong and wise, she turns her capital day by day ; deals never with 

 with dead but ever with quick objects. See the wonderful transformation pro- 

 produced by a few hundred rods of tile. Nature responds to the farmer's call for 

 a change of climate in that apparently worthless piece of land. lie lets off the 

 "water which kept the land cold and sour through constant evaporation, and 

 allows the warm rain to bring down to the roots the temperature of the air and of 

 the surface soil. By drainage the roots strike down into a sub-soil full of ripening 

 power ; and richness and beauty reward the husbandman. These tiles by associa- 

 tion are political economists. Confuters of Kicardo and Adam Smith, they are 

 full of learning ; they speak daily the words of promise, announcing a better day 

 — " more bread.'' They draiii the land, make it sweet and friable, have made some 

 of the veriest swamps to groan under the burden of the growing and matured 

 crop, converting a dismal and forbidding fen into a garden. The farmer learns 

 that the eartli works better for him than he can work for himself; works for 

 him when he is asleep, when he is sick, when it rains, wiien it snows, when heat 

 overcomes him. The heat that prostrates him, lifts up and matures his corn. 

 These reclaimed lands are the best, when the wash of mountains has accumu- 

 lated the best soil, which yield a hundred fold tlie former crops. But it needs 

 numbers, patience and perseverance to accomj)lish this reclamation, and ii pai/s 

 to do it. 



The sun and the sea arc the farmer's servants. They wait on him. AV'ith- 

 out them the other aids would serve him in vain. The sun and the sea: they 

 furnish him light and heat and rain. We eat and drink, in one form and 

 another, the moistures that drop from the clouds. Animal life is fed from 

 the clover, grass, and corn, in which the rain and dew are transmitted ; and 



