378 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



be ourselves, to some extent, scientific men. If science is to 

 teach us, we must learn the language of science. So long as 

 a majority of our farmers cannot tell the difference between 

 ammonia and ambiguity, and are completely bewildered in a 

 column of sulphates and alkalies, how can we expect that they 

 will profit very largely, by the splendid revelations and ani- 

 mating prospects of the chemical student ? If scientific lec- 

 turers approach you, for the purpose of imparting to you some 

 of the truths of philosophy, they must, as the phrase is, " fire 

 low," in order to reach you. They must speak of the most 

 splendid discoveries, of the most interesting compounds, of the 

 most abtruse principles, without (as you say,) the use of one 

 scientific term, or one word that is guilty of being recently de- 

 rived from the Greek. This is asking quite too much ; for ev- 

 ery science has its peculiar terms, that express the idea intended, 

 better than any other words, or circumlocutions, or secondary 

 phrases, possibly can. 



Then, farmers, let us raise ourselves ; let us be ashamed to 

 be ignorant of any thing we ought to know. Let us make the 

 plain principles of philosophy, and the needful terms of chem- 

 istry, as familiar as household words. Let us buy and read, 

 now simple, and by and by more abtruse, books of science ; 

 and diversify, I should rather say, beautify, our long winter 

 evenings, and rainy days, with some pleasing and profitable 

 course of reading and study ; and then, with a diploma, or 

 without one, we shall soon be educated men ; — in the pleasing 

 sentiment of Sir William Jones, though we may have the for- 

 tune of peasants, Ave shall have the education of princes. 



If the applications of science to farming are so abundant and 

 promising, — if the opportunities for improvement are so numer- 

 ous, — if the capabilities of our soil are so great, — let us go 

 home to our farms to-day, resolutely determined to make better 

 farmers, as well as more intelligent men. Let us pledge our- 

 selves here, in the presence of one another, that we will not 

 halt in the work of improvement, until we have turned every 

 stream of now wasted fertility into our waiting fields, and until 

 we have tested, to the utmost, every acre, of which the great 

 husbandman and master chemist has made us the proprietors 



