1847.] Gov. Wright's Address. 185 



our population and the demand for domestic consumption. This 

 I believe would be true without the efforts of associations, such 

 as this, to improve our agriculture. The condition of the country, 

 and the inclination and preference of our population for agricul- 

 tural pursuits, would render this result unavoidable; and if this be 

 so, when the impetus given to agricultural production by the im- 

 provements of the day; the individual and associated efforts con- 

 stantly making to push forward these improvements with an ac- 

 celerated movement; the mass of educated mind turned to scien- 

 tific researches in aid of agricultural labor; the dawning of a sys- 

 tematic and universal agricultural education; and the immense 

 bodies of cheap, and fresh, and fertile lands, which invite the ap- 

 plication of an improved agriculture, are added to the account, 

 who can measure the extent or duration of our agricultural sur- 

 plus, or doubt the soundness of the conclusion, that the export 

 trade must exercise a great influence upon the market for the 

 agricultural productions of the country for a long series of years 

 to come? 



Such is the conclusion to which my mind is forced, from an 

 examination of this subject, in its domestic aspect simply; but 

 there is another now presented of vast magnitude and engrossing 

 interest, and demanding alike from the citizen and the statesman 

 of this republic, the most careful consideration. All will at once 

 understand me as referring to the changes and promises of change 

 in the policy of the principal commercial nations of the world, 

 touching their trade in the productions of agriculture. By a sin- 

 gle step, which was nothing less than commercial revolution, 

 Great Britain practically made the change as to her trade; and 

 subsequent events have clothed with the appearance of almost 

 super-human sagacity, the wisdom which thus prepared that 

 country to meet the visitation of famine, which has so soon fol- 

 lowed, without the additional evil of trampling down the systems 

 of law to minister to the all-controlling necessities of hunger. 

 Changes similar in character, and measurably equal in extent, 

 though in many cases temporary in duration, have been adopted 

 by several other European governments, under circumstances 

 which render it very doubtful how soon, if ever, a return will be 

 made to the former policy of a close trade in the necessaries of 

 human life. 



New markets of vast extent and incalculable value, have thus 

 been opened for our agricultural surplus, the durability and stead- 

 iness of which it is impossible yet to measure with certainty. It 

 is in our power to say, however, that a great body of provocations 

 to countervailing restrictive commercial regulations, is now re- 

 moved in some instances permanently, and in others temporarily 

 in form; and it would seem to be the part of wisdom, for the ag- 



