288 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



boast we have done much ; and if we demand more, we are denounced 

 as claiming all. The name agriculture in its wisest sense, or earth- 

 working to procure wealth comprehends, I think, every act done by 

 man to draw products froni the earth. Fishing, lumbering and mining- 

 are incidental branches of it. It is the fundamental and capital busi- 

 ness of life in thsse States. When it thrives it sends up life currents 

 through all branches and departments of human activity, throbbing 

 with health and vigor, to culminate in leaf, flower and fruit. Let it 

 suffer under oppression and restriction and all the life of man in every 

 department must languish and sicken. The generous earth gives a fair 

 living to her culturists, an abundance of all life's needs. The surplus 

 product is the sole dependence, directly or indirectly, of the remaining 

 populace, and of all our creations is most sensitive to restrictions on 

 account of its perishing nature, the least able to sustain impositions 

 because of the narrow profit of its production. And yet the average 

 legislator is never so reckless as when he lays his heavy statute mak- 

 ing hand upon the interests of agriculture. The world over he seems 

 to despise it directly, and indirectly he hampers or defrauds it. The 

 immortal author of " The History of Civilization " exclaims, after re- 

 viewing the course of legislation in Europe during some centuries : 

 "The wonder is how civilization progressed at all," and asserts what 

 history demonstrates, that about all the time of each succeeding par- 

 liament has been employed in undoing the evils of its predecessors by 

 repealing their acts. And when the cry of alarmed cities is heard, and 

 in populous districts, non-agricnltural, where the hungry mouth is fed 

 by the tired hand and "no work" means "no bread;" when the very 

 earth shakes with the tread of enraged multiiudes ; if you remind this 

 class of law-makers of the cause they merely shake their huge ears 

 and reply: " Why, the agriculturists are not starving!" 



But enough of preliminary. Our subject is one closely related to 

 agriculture, and which -only a few years ago would have been laughed 

 at in that connection. I fear that in previous papers I have exhausted 

 my limited knowledge of ornithology and will not be able to interest 

 you in relating personal experiences. The works I have referred to 

 prove the vast utility of birds to agriculture. I wonder will the time 

 never come when the farmer who will not read and reflect on matters 

 relating to his avocation will be as much laughed at as the merchant 

 who can't count or the surgeon who can't handle tools? I know what 

 that sodden sneer against book farming is. I see the dull eye that not 

 one thing brightens but prospect of animal enjoyment, and the blank 

 visage of him who utters it, and I know that he can not read and think 



