SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 



revealed, an intelligent mind can have no doubt that all these 

 things rest upon certain determinate principles, and are governed 

 by laws as fixed as any which prevail in other parts of the system 

 of nature. Whoever examines the minutest crystal, will find 

 that in the same classes the laws of aggregation are the same ; 

 whoever examines any species of plants, perceives an exact sim 

 ilarity of formation and habit pervading whole classes and tribes. 

 The established principles of gravitation and attraction, and 

 above all that most wonderful discovery of chemical equivalents, 

 all demonstrate the existence, throughout nature, of fixed laws 

 and determinate forces, whose operation is universal and invaria 

 ble. There is every reason to believe that the laws of vegetable 

 and animal life, and growth and nourishment and decay, are 

 equally well established, and equally universal, and equally inva 

 riable. The ascertaining and discovery of any one of these laws 

 is positive knowledge is, properly speaking, science; and any 

 mind, acute and observing, may, in the daily routine of humble 

 life, become familiar with many of these great laws ; and read, 

 at first-hand, on the illuminated pages of external nature, the 

 most useful and the most sublime truths, though it has never 

 been taught to read by the alphabet of science, nor been allowed 

 admission into the schools of philosophy. 



It is said of one of the greatest of human intellects, a mind 

 whose sublime discoveries constitute a divine revelation, second 

 only to the written word, that he was led to the discovery of the 

 great principle which binds worlds and systems in one harmoni 

 ous bond, by the falling of an apple. The cultivator of the 

 earth has before him not merely the fall but the growth of the 

 apple, which, from the germination of the seed to the maturity 

 of the tree, from the opening of the blossom to the ripening of 

 the fruit, is full of lessons of wisdom ; and, in every stage of its 

 progress, reveals the power and the skill and the beneficence of 

 that divine agent, who fills all in all. 



England presents at this time a more brilliant example, than 

 any age or country has before witnessed, of the application, I will 

 not say of science, for that would not comprehend the idea which 

 I wish to express, but the application of mind to agriculture. 

 The practice of agriculture, and the philosophy of agriculture, 

 are matters of universal interest. Men of all grades and condi 

 tions are laboring in this great cause, and are asking for the how, 

 and the why, and the wherefore. The brighter intellects are 



