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year, nay from da}' to day. When we reflect that not 

 one farthing can be added to the wealth of the world 

 without the intervention of labor, we must, were we but 

 selfish men, rejoice at whatever tends to elevate the call- 

 ing, promote the knowledge, increase the usefulness, 

 and add to the comforts and well-being of the laboring 

 man. But there is a higher principle than selfishness 

 that calls upon us to rejoice at his prosperity a princi- 

 ple of kindness, of benevolence, of humanity; an as- 

 piration for a brighter future, and an increase of happi- 

 ness for all mankind. 



Of the wonderful progress made in the agricultural 

 and mechanical arts within the last hundred years, I 

 have no time to speak in detail. The progressive move- 

 ment has not been confined to any one country in a 

 greater or less degree it has pervaded, and yet pervades, 

 the whole civilized world. One hundred years ago there 

 was not a mile of iron railroad on the globe ; not a boat, 

 ship or mill propelled by steam; no electric telegraph; no 

 cylinder press ; no stereotype ; no cotton gin ; no steam 

 power loom the improved plough now in use, the culti- 

 vator, the reaper and mower, and the grain elevator, 

 were all unknown, as well as a multitude of other in- 

 ventions that now lessen or facilitate the labors of man- 

 kind. 



But these are not the only evidences of rapid and in- 

 creasing improvement. Some idea of the growing de- 

 votion of mind to agricultural studies may be derived 

 from .the fact that out of one thousand and thirty-two 

 volumes on agriculture and its closely related arts and 

 sciences, now in the library of Congress, nine hundred 

 and forty wjsre printed within the present century. More 

 than one hundred periodicals, newspapers included, de- 

 voted to the same subjects, are now published in the 

 United States alone, not one of which was published 

 before the year 1800. Over one thousand four hundred 



