Secretary's Budget. 31 



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Nor i^ it to Eastern civilization alone that we shall refer for a 

 sincere appreciation of the infinite benefits — benefits scarcely to be 

 measured — which are yielded us by agricultural operations Joseph 

 II, Emperor of G-ermauy, son of that heroic Maria Theresa, who 

 exalted the house of Hapsburgh to unwonted influence and strength, 

 when, in the haughtiness of his power, he visited those fair prov- 

 inces of his which stretch through the Milanese, he took in his 

 hand the plow, source of mightiest wealth, and plowed therewith a 

 whole ridge of those lovely downs that slope away to the plains, of 

 central Italy. 



In our own republic I remember to have seen the venerable 

 Timothy Pickering, the jDcrsonal friend of . Washington, who had 

 been brave in war and illustrious in the national councils, at one of 

 the cattle shows of the Essex Co. Society, take off his coat and hold 

 a plow drawn by four oxen. He was a tall, gaunt man, and he won 

 the approbation of the surrounding yoemen as knowing how to hold 

 a plow well. 



Some of our best and noblest statesmen have been cultivators 

 of the soil, and although they may not have practically held plows, 

 they employed others to, and they saw that the work was well 

 done. Washington at Mount Vernon, Jefferson at Monticello, 

 Webster at Marshfield, Clay at Ashland, Calhoun at Fort Hill, and 

 Burnside at Bristol, have demonstrated their love for the science of 

 agriculture. They, witli many other men of note, regarded agri- 

 culture as the great wheel which moves all the machinery of 

 society. Whatever gives to this a new impulse or energy -com- 

 municates a corresponding impetus to the thousand minor wheels 

 of interest which it propels and regulates. Providence seems 

 wisely to have ordained that, because this is the most necessary em- 

 ployment towards the subsistence and comfort of the human 

 family, its labors shall receive the highest and most substantial 

 reward. 



THE FUTURE OF ORNAMENTALS. 



Whittier somewhere has some beautiful thoughts which we 

 cannot now recall in the original verse, warning us against the 

 belief that all that is grand has gone before. The glory of Sinai 

 and the great mystery of the Burning Bush, are everywhere about 

 us he says still, if we will open our eyes to see. So thought we 

 when reading recently a paper in a popular magazine on the lost 

 arts of gardening. The glories of Persian flowers, and the hanging 

 gardens of Babylon were spoken of as sights, the equal of which 



