41 



of insects, is an important branch of natural history 

 to the planter and farmer. It will enable him to pro- 

 tect his fruit trees, his grain and cotton fields, from 

 their ravages ; and an acquaintance with ornitholo- 

 gy will aid him to distinguish what birds serve as 

 auxiliaries for this purpose. 



It will be the duty of this Institution, likewise, to 

 use its best endeavors to introduce into our country 

 new varieties of wholesome, nutritious, and pleasant 

 articles of food. With our extended commerce, this 

 duty may be readily performed; and here let me remark, 

 that agriculture has attained a high degree of perfection 

 only among great commercial nations. The two arts 

 depend mutually upon each other, and the cultivation 

 of the one leads to the extension and advancement of 

 the other. 



In astronomy, geology, mineralogy, and the various 

 other branches of natural history and sections into which 

 our Institution is divided, our labors must bear a near re- 

 semblance to those of similar societies elsewhere. But 

 the duties that devolve upon the department of Ameri- 

 can History and Antiquities are essentially different from 

 those required in any other quarter of the globe. While 

 in the early history of those nations, the historian, com- 

 pelled to grope his way through a labyrinth of barba- 

 rism, ignorance, and fiction, is bewildered in his search 

 after truth, the light of science, dawning upon the whole 

 course of American history, points out to the careful in- 

 vestigator a safe and illumined path from the great new 

 continent in the south back to the island of St. Salvador. 



The discovery of our continent ; its first settlements ; 

 the growth of the colonists in intelligence, wealth, and 



