52 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



cieties have come into existence very recently. Our farmers are learning 

 agricultural wisdom by meeting and interchanging their opinions and their 

 facts. They are unlearning many poor practices and learning good ones ! 

 The power of co-operation is at work to revolutionize an impoverished till- 

 age. It is no lunger a disgrace to till the soil — no more clodhoppers or 

 villeins ! but honorable farmers and gardeners, saluted by all the great and 

 good with hearty sincere greetings, in city and in country. The proper sta- 

 tion of the farmer is being established between the rich and the poor ! — the 

 grand medium from which all power emanates — the happy conservatory of 

 all our real blessings — health of body and of mind, all new, useful and beau- 

 tiful productions, — and with them lessons of wisdom in the great art of till- 

 ing and keeping the earth — and always that pureness of religion which 

 unites with the purity of the air the farmer breathes ! and that content 

 which towns and cities know but little of. 



Intelligent farming, unlike any other work of man, never tires and can 

 never wholly fail. If he is on a poor soil he enriches it and keeps it rich, 

 whereas every other business destroys that on which it lives. The workers 

 in wood kill forests, miners dig out the last bushel of ore, never again to 

 grow, while just farming finds a world poor, and after thousands of years 

 leaves it far richer than he found it. Such is the remunerating power of 

 the grand art of cultivation, man's true occupation and enjoyment; to 

 which the heart of every true man turns from every other employment and 

 pursuit — from royalty, from trade, from all manner of manufactures, from 

 every species of business, to the farm and garden at last — and I repeat the 

 remark of Theophrastus, of Athens, who lived 100 years, 2,200 years ago, 

 " That a man tires of ever7jthi7ig but a garden and far m.^' 



And while the great body of our people thus enjoy the fruits of industry 

 in the fields, another large mass of people whose labor there is not needed, 

 turn all their energies of soul and body to the arts, constantly striving to 

 excel all that ever has been done before. And what a theme for congratu- 

 lation the improvements are ? Hardly anything made by hands is without 

 some improvement, not even iron and steel, which have employed the 

 genius, the good fortune and the never ceasing work of men, and at this 

 moment more the subjects of study and experiment than they ever were 

 before. How to make pure tough iron perfectly homogeneous, so that every 

 square inch of boiler plates (for example) shall be of equal strength, thus 

 insuring safety under a known pressure of steam ; or chain cables, every 

 link of which shall be perfect in texture and in welding, so that the great 

 ship may depend upon its holding her firmly through the tempest ; these 

 are great objects of human science and care. Can anything interest us all, 

 more than safety on railroads and oceans ? There are human diseases 

 which have defied all the powers of medicine, until they are called the 

 oi^'prohriums of medicine, like consumption and some others. There are 

 also opprobriums of mechanics, of which the iron and management of 

 steam is the greatest. The blood of thousands of innocents, old and 

 young, cries for amendment. Let us not rest until we have so amended all 



