achieved upon many an exhausted field of our native 

 land. 



But gratifying as this picture of ancient cultivation 

 may appear, there is another side to it in which it was 

 lamentably deficient. For want of the mechanical in- 

 vention and skill by which our age is so justly and 

 highly distinguished, the implements of agriculture 

 used by the ancients were so far inferior to ours that 

 could they be produced before you to-daj*, not all the 

 good they once accomplished could save them from your 

 wonder and ridicule. Here it is that inventive genius 

 and the mechanic arts have contributed directly and 

 most beneficially to promote the cultivation of the soil 

 as we see it practiced in our day, and this is another 

 proof of the universal rule that the benefits of knowl- 

 edge and skill in whatever department of human effort 

 are not confined to that department alone, but are surely 

 felt, in a greater or less degree, in every other human 

 pursuit. 



Another difficulty with the ancients was a want of sci- 

 entific knowledge. " Science," says Whewell, "is a body 

 of principles and deductions to explain the nature of 

 some matter. An art is a body of precepts with practi- 

 cal skill for the completion of some work. A science 

 teaches us to know ; an art to do." Or, as defined by 

 others, science is knowledge, art is the application of 

 knowledge to some useful or ornamental purpose. 



An art maybe highly productive though some of its pre- 

 cepts be false ; but it will inevitably be more productive if 

 all of them be true. And here comes in the great office of 

 science which is to discover and teach absolute verity. 

 And then it is the office of art to apply the discoveries so 

 as to produce the greatest practical results. Science 

 without art is an unused treasure a diamond buried in 

 the earth. Art without science is work without knowl- 

 edge a ship without a compass. It is frequently said 

 2 



