232 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



cultural Congress) and will not do so at this session. 

 I am sorry indeed that a scheme so useful should be so 

 treated". 



Maury was undaunted by such rebuffs and continued 

 his campaign. On May 29, 1872 he addressed the 

 National Agricultural Congress at St. Louis, declaring 

 that Europe was ripe for such a scheme and citing the 

 names of the following influential supporters of it 

 abroad: Alexander Buchan, Secretary of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society ; Commodore Jansen of Holland ; 

 Quetelet, Astronomer Royal and Perpetual Secretary of 

 the Academy of Sciences of Brussels; Marie Davy, 

 Zurcher, and Margolle, meteorologists and savants of 

 France; and Father Secchi of the Collegio Romano in 

 Italy. The legislatures of Tennessee, Alabama, Missis- 

 sippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia, he de- 

 clared, had passed resolutions instructing Congress to 

 support an international conference; and he suggested 

 that they bring further influence to bear on Congress 

 through state agricultural societies, agricultural journals, 

 and the general press of the country. He called atten- 

 tion to the fact that his interest in the scheme was not a 

 private one, since he had no farm, and could not share in 

 the honor of helping to organize and carry out the plan 

 for the government. He closed with an eloquent plea, 

 emphasizing the benefits to be derived, which he esti- 

 mated would be as great as those formerly bestowed upon 

 commerce by the results of the Brussels Conference. 



On August 13 of the same year he spoke before the 

 Agricultural Convention of Georgia at Griffin. Here 

 he covered about the same ground that he had in his 

 St. Louis speech, and used the same arguments, though 

 the language was different and it was not a mere repeti- 



