308 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jt 



AMERICAN AGPJCULTURE. 



BY DR. GEORGE B. LORING OF SALEM. 



I desire to call the attention of the Board to American 

 agriculture as a part of the increasing and developing indus- 

 tries of this country. The rapid growth of all enterprise 

 here constitutes one of the most important and interesting 

 chapters in the history of civilization. The stories of dis- 

 covery and conquest have charms which more prosaic occu- 

 pations are not expected to possess, and yet they all sink into 

 insignificance before the recital of the steady and triumphant 

 march of the vast army of untiring and devoted sons of 

 industry, who have cleared the forests and opened the 

 mines, and chained the water-falls, and built the great high- 

 ways of travel and transportation over valleys and through 

 mountains, and erected chuiches and school-houses, and 

 organized cities and towns, and fed and clothed and educated 

 themselves, and have tilled the commerce of the world with 

 the products of their toil. The chosen career of the 

 American people has been a career of peaceful industry, and 

 our achievements on this field have won the admiration of 

 the world, from our infancy to our maturity and strength. 

 More than three-quarters of a century ago, Sheridan ex- 

 claimed, in the House of Commons: "America remains 

 neutral, prosperous and at peace. . . . Turn your eyes to 

 her. View her situation, her happiness, her content. Ob- 

 serve her trade and her manufactures adding daily to her 

 general credit, to her private enjoyments, and to her public 

 resources ; her name and her government rising above the 

 nations of Europe with a simple but commanding dignity 

 that wins at once the respect, the confidence, the afiection 



