182 Gov. Wright's Address. [Oct., 



be an error as to the fact inquired after, and not as to the sound- 

 ness of the principle in political economy dependent upon the fact 

 for its application, because as to the soundness of the principle, I 

 attempt no discussion and offer no opinion. It will be an error 

 as to the applicability of a theory to our country, and not as to 

 the wisdom or policy of the theory itself, because of the soundness, 

 or unsoundness of the theory, when it can be practically applied, 

 I studiously refrain from any expression, as inappropriate here. 

 With the indulgence of the society, I will inquire as to the fact. 



Our country is very wide and very new. It embraces every 

 variety of climate and soil most favorable to agricultural pursuits. 

 It produces already almost every agricultural staple, and the most 

 important are the ordinary productions of extensive sections of the 

 country, and are now sent to the markets in great abundance. 



Yet our agriculture is in its infancy almost everywhere, and at 

 its maturity nowhere. It is believed to be entirely safe to assume 

 that there is not one single agricultural county in the whole Union, 

 filled up in an agricultural sense — not one such county which has 

 not yet land to be brought into cultivation, and much more land, 

 the cultivation of which is to be materially improved, before it 

 can be considered as having reached the measure of its capacity 

 for production. If this be true of the best cultivated agricultural 

 county in the Union, how vast is the proportion of those counties 

 which have entire townships, and of the states which have not 

 merely counties, but entire districts, yet wholly unpeopled, and 

 unreclaimed from the wilderness state? 



When to this broad area of the agricultural field of our country, 

 w^e add our immense territories, organized and unorganized, who 

 can compute the agricultural capacaties of the United States, or 

 fix a limit to the period when our surplus agricultural productions 

 will increase with increasing years and population? Compare 

 the census of 1830 and 1840 with the map of the Union, and wit- 

 ness the increase of population in the new states, which are almost 

 exclusively agricultural, and who can doubt the strong and resist- 

 less inclination of our people to this pursuit? 



Connect with these considerations of extent of country, diver- 

 sity of soils, varieties of climate, and partial and imperfect culti- 

 vation, the present agricultural prospects of this country. Wit- 

 ness the rapid advances of the last dozen years in the character of 

 our cultivation, the quality and quantity of our productions from 

 a given breadth of land, and the improvements in all the imple- 

 ments by which the labor of the farmer is assisted and applied. 

 Mark the vast change in the current of educated mind of the coun- 

 try, in respect to this pursuit; the awakened attention to its high 

 respectability as a profession, to its safety from hazards, to its 

 healthfulness to mind and body, and to its productiveness. Listen 



