33 



crucible, and mechanism comparatively little with its smith- 

 eries and factories. Both have, probably, only begun 

 their magical economics yet. But it is none the less true, 

 that in the simple discovery of the fact^ that chemistry, 

 along with geology and physiology, has relations to farm- 

 ing, and could he made to help it, in the bare establishing 

 of that fact, was a grander crisis in the history of this 

 business than is likely ever to come again. So in the 

 demonstrated feasibility of labor-saving machinery, after 

 the wooden ploughshare and the live-stock threshing-ap- 

 paratus of centuries, there was the turning of a corner, 

 the opening of a new page, the sudden light that always 

 breaks in with the sunrise of a fresh principle, which did 

 more for you than perhaps can be done again. So that if 

 it is modest ever to predicate such a thing of any interest, 

 in a day so pregnant with wonders as ours, we might 

 venture to declare, that the grandeurs of reformation, 

 the cardinal revolutions, and the Lutheran age, in agricul- 

 ture, are passed. 



What, at any rate, is the precise direction of the efforts 

 wanted now, and demanded of you, as farmers who, in 

 cultivating the earth, mean to cultivate yourselves"? It 

 will be found, I suspect, that the answer to this question 

 is as practical a theme, and as well worth your study, as 

 any that the proprieties of to-day could possibly suggest. 

 We hear much vaguely said of the need of enlightened 

 farming — it has been the topic of repeated occasions like 

 this : it is worth inquiring, where, precisely, at just this 

 time, that light should be made to fall in. 



In the first place, the posture of New England farmers 

 as they are, exposes the need of rousing still further what 

 may be called the spirit of the profession. It has its own 

 rights, privileges, duties, and titles to homage. I remem- 

 ber, of course, how the very Festival that calls us together, 

 the wide departments of your annual display, and especially 



