310 Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. 



nourishment, and is transmuted into our bodies, from the very com- 

 mencement to the termination of our bodily existence. But both in it3 

 more primitive condition of inorganic matter, and in its various organic 

 revolutions and changes in passing from the earth to the formation of 

 our living bodies, the dust of which we are made is at every stage — in 

 every form, continually subject to fixed constitutional laws, and hence 

 there are fixed laws of relation between our living bodies and all the 

 forms of matter by which we are sustained, and between these and the 

 earth from which they spring, and of which they are composed. It is 

 therefore an important truth, Avhich human beings ought well to under- 

 stand, that every thing which aftects the quality of the soil and the 

 character of its produce, has a most intimate relation, not only to our 

 health of body, but to the general well being of man. Our wheat, our 

 rye, our corn, our potatoes, and every other vegetable substance enter- 

 ing into the food of man, are rendered more or less healthful according 

 as our agricultural and horticultural operations are more or less in con- 

 formity with the physiological laws of our nature. 



" But interesting as this topic is, I must not on the present occasion 

 extend my remarks. Yet I could wish that every tiller of the ground 

 throughout the world were an enlightened — a thoroughly scientific Jthy- 

 siologist. The importance of a liberal education in this class of men 

 has been too jrreatly overlooked; and hitherto it seems generally to 

 have been thought that the cultivation of the soil requires but a small 

 stock of knowledge, and no scientific attainments; and hence, even in our 

 own agricultural country, the vocation and standing of the farmer have 

 been too connnonly considered as less reputable than those of the mer- 

 chant, the professional man, &.c. This is wrong — it ought not so to be. 

 The cultivators of the soil ought always to be regardecl as the true no- 

 bility of the country, and they ought, therefore, to be among the most 

 intelligent — the most liberally educated — the most extensively scientific 

 members of society. Geology, mineralogy, chemistrj-, meteorology, 

 botany, zoology, physiology, and other natural sciences, are of more 

 immediate interest to the tillers of the ground than perhaps any other 

 men; and when things are rightly understood and rightly ordered, such 

 qualifications will be the ordinary attributes of our agriculturists, and 

 the tilling of the ground will be regarded as it should be, the noblest 

 and mosfhonorable employment of man." (Neiiispaper.) 



Art. IV. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. 



The monthly meeting of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was 

 held on Tuesday evening the I7th July, in the hall under the Athenieum, 

 Mr. Keating in the chair. 



The committee on jdants and flowers awarded the premium for the 

 ten best varieties of carnations to Messrs. Mackenzie & Buchanan, at 

 the Society's intermediate meeting on the 4th inst., two competitors. 



The premium for the best American seedling carnation was awarded 

 to Messrs. Mackenzie & Buchanan, at the Society's intermediate meet- 

 ing on the 4th inst., two competitors. 



