1856.] Promotion of Scientific Agriculture. 285 



importance and interest in view of the well-being of tlie present and the 

 future of our race ! And this improvement must originate from the 

 application of mind, not chance or accident. The dull plodding laborer 

 originatfs nothing any more than the beast which he drives. He goes 

 over and over again, without varying a step, the beaten track of his 

 ancestors, planting as they planted, and wasting as they wasted, the ele- 

 ments of production. How many once fertile portions of our country, 

 east, west, and south, have been turned to a waste, upon which nothing can 

 grow to sustain man or beast ; and almost all over our older settled lands 

 the staple crops arc becoming less and less remunerative ; and in despite 

 of all that has been said and written, there seems no improvement. The 

 tide of population is still sweeping westward, covering our prairies and 

 filling our fertile valleys, depredating as they go, and like an army of 

 locusts destroying in their march every green thing, leaving almost a 

 desert in their track. 



But without dilating further on the numerous material or physical 

 advantages arising from the study of science and its application to agri- 

 culture, let us turn to those results of a moral and immaterial nature 

 which would be consequent upon the educational facilities we propose. 

 In the contemplation of these, there will appear to every reflecting mind 

 a frandeur, and beautv, which will eclipse all those, however important, 

 and they are important, that look to the mere consideration of dollars and 

 cents — to the creation, accumulation, and distribution of what is called 

 wealth, the devotion to which may be called the idolatry of the age. Tor 

 never was the golden calf in the camp of the Israelites more devoutly wor- 

 shiped than is mammon at the present day. It threatens to devour in the 

 soul of man everything lovely and of good report, and even to turn the wor • 

 ship of the true God into hypocritical mockery. By the establishment of 

 the institutions proposed, we would greatly elevate the present standard of 

 man's intellectual and social condition. The man who finds little use 

 for his mind in the pros3cution of his own business, could not be expected 

 to appreciate the value of education for any other calling or pursuit ; if 

 reading, writing, and a little arithmetic comprehend his entire cata- 

 logue of studies, and these fit him for the use of the hoe, and the plow, 

 and enable him to make money, why should the merchant, or any other 

 man, need more? ^Yhy should we have institutions of science at all? 

 This has been the reasoning of many farmers, and the sentiment 

 advanced is now but too prevalent. How absurd and ridiculous, that 

 an employment necessary not only to the well-being but to the very exist- 

 ence of our race, and which God has destined that most should follow, 

 and one surrounded with so much to expand and elevate the soul of man, 



