THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 61 



of clay becomes, through the agency of a simple circulatory 

 tube, as obedient to the hand of the cultivator, as the warmest 

 and most fertile loams. You have brought out of wild and use- 

 less classes of plants the nutritious grains and luxuriant fruits 

 which nourish and delight. You have seized and tamed the 

 species of animals adapted to your wants, and have produced 

 every variety of breed which diversity of soil and climate and 

 market may require. The heavy Shorthorn makes haste to 

 repay you for his food by a rapid production of beef. The hardy 

 and patient Ayrshire devotes all her faculties to an abundant 

 supply for your dairy. The clumsy draught horse learns read- 

 ily the duty which you have imposed upon his phlegmatic 

 family. The racer and roadster aVe ever alert in the service to 

 which you have especially assigned them. You have learned 

 the capacity of your lands, and understand what fertilizers they 

 require, as well as you know the food which will best nourish 

 your domestic animals. You have discovered how to subdue 

 nature, and go forth to the first step of the process with axe 

 iipon your shoulder, as confident of the result of the contest as 

 if the blooming fields were already before you. Out of your 

 number came Cavour, who, in the intervals of his public life, 

 was the most successful farmer of Northern Italy ; and Mechi, 

 whose practical operations as recorded have become one of the 

 text-books of farming ; and Marshall, who learned to manage 

 his own lands, and who declared that " attendance and attention 

 will make any man a farmer ; " and John Johnson, who has 

 taught us all how to raise wheat on drained lands, and Parmen- 

 tier, who was obliged to turn farmer before he could overcome 

 popular prejudice and introduce the potato into France. 

 From among your number have come the clear-sighted and 

 unerring and quick-witted workers, who have made immediate 

 application of every good suggestion and have brought agricul- 

 ture to a high standard. To you belong especially that class, 

 who, having acquired their knowledge, reproduce it in some 

 useful form for the practical benefit of mankind ; that class 

 whose minds are not so burdened with theories that when the 

 moment for action comes they lose sight of the very object for 

 which their theories were constructed. 



Bulwer, in one of his essays, tells an admirable story to illus- 

 trate the readiness with which some of you do, and all of you 



