356 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



evening of labor, and refinement to the parlors of the 

 poor. It will show the absurdity of the Malthusian 

 myth, and the speciousness of the Georgian pessimism. 

 Our people are not going to starve. The mission of 

 the new building this day dedicated to agriculture will 

 not be in vain. 



FORGET NOT THE HUMBLE BEGINNING. 



On the threshold of this new birth of progress and 

 of possibility it is meet that we should not forget the 

 humble beginnings of things. Monuments and memo- 

 rials are rising to Liebig, to Berthelot, to Gilbert, to 

 Morrill and to Hatch. We mention with gratitude the 

 names of Storer, of Johnson, of C aid well and of Hil- 

 gard, and we gladly join in every acclaim of the services 

 which they and many others have rendered to the cause 

 of agriculture. But there is still one to whom we owe 

 a debt, and whose name is never heard, a true and typi- 

 cal American, whose majestic figure we may never see 

 in bronze and marble. Some 300 years ago he stood 

 on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, where the eager 

 east wind, as now, often made life a burden. The 

 sturdy white men, lately transplanted from over the 

 sea, were not looked on with much favor by many of 

 his brethren. His philanthropy, however, went out to 

 them, and it was he who, in those early days, taught 

 our ancestors the first principles of scientific agricul- 

 ture. He laid the foundations of that system of ex- 

 periment which is the basis on which our agricultural 

 colleges and experiment- stations of to-day stand. Lis- 

 ten to the simple record of his work : 



