66 REPOET OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



of starvation within their shadow. Impelled by ambition or 

 revenge, intellect has schemed, and men have strenuously 

 labored, to make desolate the fairest portions of the globe, 

 trampling to dust the bounties of nature garnered up by care 

 and prudent forethought, and crushing out the image of God 

 from the face of humanity. Generally, as a direct result, the 

 recoil of pinching famine has proved more fearful than the 

 sword. 



Intellect, then, must operate in useful channels, and labor 

 must be skillfully directed and dilligently applied to the legiti- 

 mate pursuits of industry. 



In the midst of gratulations for the eminent success which 

 lias so fully crowned your past efforts, it is natural for you to 

 indulge in comparison and retrospection. You instinctively 

 glance over other communities, nations, and countries, for the 

 proper measure of your own attainments and true position in 

 the scale of civilized being. The result to you must be highly 

 gratifying, when tried by every rational standard of morality, 

 of social happiness, general intelligence, or public prosperity. 

 As it regards matters of practical utility, you may safely con- 

 clude that in mechanic arts, inventions, and scientific 

 discovery, our country has no superior. 



In the line of agricultural production, whether of stock or 

 cereals, grains, grasses, vegetables, or fruits, with proper allow- 

 ances for soil and climate, you have abundant cause for an 

 honest pride in your community efforts. 



Upon occasions like the present, we are also inclined to 

 glance away backward over past ages, and to mark the progress 

 made, at successive eras, in human affairs. We become curious 

 in observing by what advancing steps the physical wants of 

 man have pushed his intellect into investigation, research, 

 invention, and discovery, until the actual circle of human 

 power over elemental nature has become immensely enlarged. 



Ill-shapen and rude as must have been the first tools of 

 trade, still Tubal Cain, the primal artificer in brass and iron, 



