DANIEL LEE'S ADDRESS. 389 



the important principle is fully established, that the same 

 natural laws govern the food and growth of cultivated plants, 

 that regulate the nutrition and growth of domestic animals. 

 Nature demands sulphur to organize the brains, nerves and 

 muscles of animals ; and if their daily food fails to contain this 

 mineral, who does not see that disease and premature death 

 would be their fate ? If nature requires lime and phosphoric 

 acid in forming bones in the bodies of cattle, sheep and swine, 

 would it be wise, even in our humble view of creative wis- 

 dom, to permit grass, grain and the other appropriate aliment of 

 these animals to grow, without the presence in their stems, 

 leaves and seeds of a particle of either lime or phosphoric acid ? 

 How can a pig, calf, or even a child, know that the milk which 

 it consumes to form every part of its system, contains the right 

 ingredients for that purpose ? Nothing so clearly, so strikingly 

 reveals the wisdom and goodness of Providence, as the perfect 

 harmony that subsists between the mineral, vegetable and ani- 

 mal kingdoms. We often speak of the " milk of human kind- 

 ness ; but no one can trace the milk of divine kindness back 

 to the solid rocks, the ocean and the atmosphere whence it 

 has been drawn by infinite goodness, and not experience re- 

 newed strength in all his virtuous impulses. To study agri- 

 cultural science, and thereby habitually contemplate the works 

 of God, is eminently calculated to make man a better as well 

 as a wiser being. 



In the tobacco and cotton-growing states, there are millions 

 of acres that have been cultivated so long as the crops would 

 pay for the labor, and tlien abandoned to sedge, pines and 

 briers. The process that nature adopts to renovate these par- 

 tially exhausted " old fields " is worthy of a few moments' con- 

 sideration. The widely distributed and curiously arranged 

 seeds of the pine are nature's favorites for restoring the lost fer- 

 tility to impoverished soils. So soon as these seeds germinate, 

 they extend their radicles or small tap-roots deeply into the 

 earth in search of a little potash or other alkaline base. Two 

 small leaves are then developed and draw aliment from the 

 ever-moving atmosphere that comes in contact with them. If 

 the air about the leaves of plants were immovable, it is plain 



