ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE. 



done so little, but that they have done so much, to prepare the way for hiture 

 laborers. 



Every thing must liavc a beginning. Astronomy had its origin in astrology, 

 and though for a long time indebted to it lor the principal part of its progress, the 

 daughter has yet demonstrated the absurdity of her mother's fantastic imagina- 

 tions and absurd predictions, until it has deprived her of all esteem except among 

 the most benighted tribes of Asia and Africa. 



The noble science of Chemistry, again, is based upon isolated facts accumu- 

 lated by alchymists, whose labors had been otherwise wasted upon visionary and 

 impracticable objects ; but, thanks to the labors of the pliilosoplier and the edu- 

 cated man ! we can now, by the laws of these sciences, Astronomy and Chemis- 

 try, calculate the distance of heavenly bodies, and detect the chemical properties 

 of organic matter ; so that an eminent lecturer in Europe has lately expressed 

 the opinion that in Scotland, Avithin a few years, a farmer will make out his pre- 

 scription for specific manures, according to the crop he wishes to cultivate, and 

 send it to an agricultural chemist to be compounded according to order, as the 

 apothecary makes up the doctor's prescription for any of the various disorders 

 that "flesh is heir to." 



But to make a pursuit or even a pastime attractive — to insure a knowledge 

 of its rules and principles — to inspire a devotion to it for the sake of its physical 

 exercise or intellectual enjoyments, we must be attached to it by the force of 

 youthful associations. You can no more incline a grown mind, fixed in its habits 

 and character, to shake oti' its habitual languor, and give it a sharp appetite and 

 keen thirst, and animate it to enduring efforts after knowledge, than you can 

 make a rope-dancer out of an octogenarian, or turn the stagnant pool into living 

 Avater. 



Hence the amusing literature, even before the science of Agriculture, should 

 be taught in our schools, as the boy tolls the bird into his trap, by sprinkling his 

 bait on the outside. But, unlike the bird, when he is caught — when he has fairly 

 tasted of the bait — when he has been led on by reading something of the natural 

 history of Agriculture and Horticulture — of the insects that undermine at the 

 root, and the birds and squirrels that ravage and feed upon the grain — when thus 

 seduced, as it were, to contract a habit of reading and research connected with 

 rural life, he turns his back on idle company and vicious courses for ever after, 

 and becomes, ere he knows it, a willing and delighted captive to the charming 

 fascinations that lead him on with insatiable curiosity to explore all the various 

 apartments in the Temple of Knowledge. 



Is there any man who hears me among you, farmers of Worcester, who would 

 not delight to have his son taught at school, by well paid and accomplished gen- 

 tlemen instructors, so much, for instance, of the Natural History of birds as would 

 enable him to know to what group, whether of air, earth, or water, any individ- 

 ual he might meet with belonged 1 and whether a friend or an enemy to the ag- 

 riculturist ; — enough of Etitomology to say to what order and class any insect 

 belongs, and to describe its habits, whether useful, as the silk-worm or the bee — 

 predatory, as the Hessian fly — or poisonous, as the spider ? Yet more, that he 

 should know something of Geology, which, as it traces the connection between 

 the exterior features and the internal structure of the earth, bears directly upon 

 Agriculture, and opens to every inquisitive mind " a book wherein he may read 

 strange matters ?" Ought not every farmer who has the means be ashamed not 

 to have his son, who is to follow his pursuit, taught, as the Cadets at the Mili- 



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