ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE. 



and carneil dff— wliolher in ihe form of grain or grass, or fruit, or beef, or butter, 

 or cheese, it matters not. The time, 1 say, has come, tiiat " it needs no ghost 

 come from the grave to tell us this ;" and hence it is, that he who willhigly per- 

 mits a hoof, or a horn, or even a bone, to be thrown away, has no claim to a seat 

 among frugal and considerate farmers. And here let me remark, for the benefit 

 of those who are in the habil of speaking sneeringly of book knowledge as con- 

 nected with Agriculture, that it is not the mere pnictiral working man, useful 

 and worthy of respect as all such men are, who would of himself ever make the 

 discovery ; no, it is to the scientific investigator we owe the knowledge, by 

 chemical analysis, that even a single 'pound of bone contains as much of a certain 

 substance, composed of phosphate of lime and other compounds, as is contained 

 iu twenty-eight pounds of wheat, for instance, or in two hundred and fifty pounds 

 of potatoes. It is to the man educated in a knoivledge of the principles of Agri- 

 culture, in a word, that we must look for an acquaintance with the fertilizing 

 j>roperties of all those ingredients which are indispensable to the healthy growth 

 as well of plants as of the animals by which those plants are consumed. Nor 

 will the just and sagacious farmer delay payment of the debt which he thus 

 contracts to his land, by bearing off the elements of its fertility, any more than 

 to the veriest Shylock among his money creditors; for both these creditors, the 

 land no less than the money lender, are in the habit of charging interest night 

 and day, Sundays not excepted ; and you all know that " he has a short Lent 

 who owes money to be paid at Easter." But while I forbear to dwell, before 

 this enlightened assembly, on mere matters of practice, based on repeated ex- 

 periments, and now promulgated, far and wide, by our numerous agricultural 

 journals of the highest merit and the widest circulation, let me the more 

 earnestly reprobate the idea that there is nothing farther to be learned of the 

 philosophy and the principles of Agriculture — nothing more of the composition 

 of manures, of the structure of implements, of the physiology of plants or of 

 animals. Who has even yet fully solved the problem of the action of gypsum 

 or plaster of Paris ? Some say it acts by attracting moisture from the atmos- 

 phere ; but if so, why should it act like magic, as I happen to know it does, on 

 one farm, while on an adjoining one it is utterly effete and useless ? No, no ! my 

 ^'riends ; so far from the subject having been exhausted and closed to scientific 

 explorers, let none dare say of its progress, in the presumptuous arrogance of 

 Canute to the waves of the ocean, " Thus far shalt thou go, but no farther !" 

 On the contrary, in the great scheme of an all-wise Providence, there is no fea- 

 ture so conservative as that which presents you only the rude materials of your 

 art, and the elements of your industry, to be infinitely, ay, infinitely improved 

 by assiduous study and ingenious experiment. It is that constant hope of dis- 

 covering something new and useful which saves the human mind from the can- 

 ker of inactivity, and the soul from sinking under idleness and that oppressive 

 ennui, the very thought of Avhicii is horrible to every man of spirit. Nay, it 

 is this quality of improvability which is the soul of civilization itself, and saves 

 the world from relapsing into universal barbarism and slavery ! 



As an earnest of what may yet be eflected, we have but to compare the vari- 

 ous and delicious fruits displayed at your noble exhibition of horticultural indus- 

 try, in all their magnificent variety, with the bitter and rude originals from which 

 they sprang, to see and acknowledge what has been done by Uinging the mind 

 to direct the hand in the field of Horticulture ! For, after all -< us never forget 

 that it is the province of the mind to investigate, to discoT .d give orders. 



