AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 239 



And, at the first blush, it would appear that man possesses entire control 

 over all the means of subsistence. But when we come to thoroughly inves- 

 tigate the matter, wo are obliged to confess that the desired results can 

 only be obtained by performing, in a peculiar manner, certain processes, at 

 certain periods, and that agriculture is, in reality, an experimental art, and 

 has been brought to its present perfection, mainly without the aid of science, 

 but with the view of obtaining the greatest possible produce, at the smallest 

 expense of labor and manure. In this manner, Great Britain has gradu- 

 ally increased her production from five millions of dollars per annum, in 

 the time of the Roman invasion, to one thousand millions, at the present 

 time. And this enormous sum is a mere fraction of what her soil may be 

 made capable of producing, when she calls science to her aid, and returns 

 to the land the loss of fertility by the exportation of her products. She is 

 the largest exporter of agricultural productions in the world, which has, 

 so far, rendered her people wealthy, happy and powerful, and will continue 

 so long as her nobles, and monarchs, encourage, as they now do, agricul- 

 ture. When I think of this all-important subject, and realize the depen- 

 dence of human life upon it, and call to mind the fact that one year's fail- 

 ure would depopulate the universe as surely as the flood did, I grieve that 

 so little has been accomplished by us, that our government fails to organize 

 a proper dissemination of agricultural information among the people 

 through the medium of agricultural colleges, and that there is no sympa- 

 thy among legislators for the farmer. In the whole United States, there is 

 not a single agricultural college of any great distinction, while in the ter- 

 ritory of Prussia, there are several, where the students are taught that 

 perfect husbandry consists in graduating the pabulum to the nutritive 

 powers, satisfying the entire capabilities of plants at the proper period of 

 time, giving them the heat, moisture, and climate suited to their constitu- 

 tions, making their condition in the ground perfect, always placing within the 

 reach of their roots, the assimilating elements composing them, and thus, 

 without the possibility of a failure, ensuring productive returns. All this 

 requires knowledge which we, as a people, really do not possess. 



What we desire to learn in our agricultural college, is, to supply the 

 necessary enrichers without waste, restricting them to the kind and quan- 

 tity required by the plants cultivated, so that there might be nothing left 

 to wash away, or escape into the atmosphere in a gaseous form, and that 

 the product may be obtained with the least expenditure of labor. To learn 

 this requires study, and a thorough insight into the physiology of vegeta- 

 tion, which would be best acquired in an institution endowed for the pur- 

 pose, and, I think, might be easily afforded by a people, the value of 

 whose real and personal estate amounts to seven billion, one hundred and 

 thirty-five million, seven hundred and eighty thousand, two hundred and 

 twenty-eight dollars. The land that yields crops in the United States, if 

 divided among its inhabitants, would give to each seven and a third acres, 

 and amount in value to three billion, two hundred and seventy million, 



