1847.] Gov. Wright's Address. 183 



to the calls for information, for education, upon agricultural sub- 

 jects, and to the demands that this education shall constitute a 

 department in the great and all pervading system of our common 

 school education, a subject at this moment receiving the especial 

 attention, and being pressed forward by the renewed energies of 

 this society. Behold the number of professors, honored with the 

 highest testimonials of learning conferred in our country, devoting 

 their lives to geological and chemical researches calculated to 

 evolve the laws of nature connected with agricultural production. 

 Go into our colleges and institutions of learning, and count the 

 young men toiling industriously for their diplomas, to qualify them- 

 selves to become practical and successful farmers, already con- 

 vinced that equally with the clerical, the legal, and the medical 

 professions, that of agriculture requires a thorough and systematic 

 education, and its successful practice the exercise of an active 

 mind devoted to diligent study. 



Apply these bright, and brightening prospects to the almost 

 boundless agricultural field of our country, with its varied and sa- 

 lubrious climate, its fresh and unbroken soils, its cheap lands and 

 fee simple titles, and who can hope, if he would, to turn the in- 

 clinations of our people from this fair field of labor and of plea- 

 sure? Here the toil which secures a certain independence is 

 sweetened by the constant and constantly varying exhibitions of 

 nature in her most lovely forms, and cheered by the most benig- 

 nant manifestations of the wonderful power and goodness of Na- 

 ture's God. Cultivated by the resolute hands and enlightened 

 minds of freemen, owners of the soil, properly educated, as farm- 

 ers, under a wise and a just administration of a system of liberal 

 public instruction should and will be, and aided by the researches 

 of geology and chemistry, who can calculate the extent of the 

 harvests to be gathered from this vast field of wisely directed hu- 

 man industry. 



The present surplus of breadstufFs of this country, could not 

 have been presented in a moie distinct and interesting aspect than 

 during the present year. A famine in Europe, as wide-spread as 

 it has been devastating and terrible, has made its demands upon 

 American supplies, not simply to the extent of the ability of the 

 suffering to purchase food, but in superadded appeals to American 

 sympathy in favor of the destitute and starving. Every call upon 

 our markets has been fully met, and the heart of Europe has been 

 filled with warm and grateful responses to the benevolence of our 

 country, and of our countrymen, and yet the avenues of commerce 

 are filled with the productions of American agriculture. Surely 

 the consumption of this country is not now equal to its agricul- 

 tural production. 



If such is our surplus in the present limited extent and imper- 



