328 PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 



plain clothes, himself familiar enough in his address, 

 took up our cards without any previous application, and, 

 returning immediately, conducted us to the first floor, 

 and there ushered us at once into the presence of a plain 

 and plainly dressed man of no pretensions, not above the 

 middle height, and who shook us heartily by the hand, 

 as the North American fashion so universally is. We 

 spoke of the agricultural department or bureau, which 

 he had proposed to Congress to organise, subordinate to 

 the Secretary of State. I expressed my opinion of the 

 policy and advantage of giving a definite and recognised 

 place in the affairs of the nation to an interest so impor 

 tant in the United States as its rural industry. As a 

 farmer he was surprised that the step had not been 

 taken by his earlier predecessors. Polk, trained to a 

 peaceful profession, had directed his own and the people s 

 energies to the prosecution of war. Taylor, whose trade 

 had been fighting for forty years, was anxious to pro 

 mote the arts of peace. We spoke also of Great Britain, 

 and of the blessings of union between the two nations. 

 &quot; If England and the United States agree,&quot; he said, 

 &quot; they may keep the whole world at peace.&quot; I left the 

 old man with a pleasant and kindly feeling ; for with all 

 he said in his simple, plain, unstudied way, I -cordially 

 sympathised, and he spoke it naturally enough to satisfy 

 you that it was the expression of his everyday thoughts. 



The agricultural bureau, of which I have spoken, is to 

 occupy itself with everything connected with the actual 

 condition and mode of improving the numerous depart 

 ments of rural industry, which the various soils and 

 climates of this wide territory either do already, or are 

 fitted to prosecute. Only Russia, of all existing domi 

 nions, possesses so wide a field for the application of rural 

 knowledge of every kind, within what may be called its 

 home territories, as the United States ; and certainly there 

 is none in which the productions of the soil form a larger 



