A Discourse on Agriculture. xxi 



extended the prosperity and enjoyments of our race ; whether 

 as colonists emigrating to a wilderness, or as citizens of an 

 independent nation, rapidly advancing to an equality with 

 those who have had the advantages of long experience, accu- 

 mulating through ages, to perfect their political, agricultural, 

 commercial and manufacturing systems. All these are a fa- 

 mily of national relatives, whose fraternity should never be 

 disturbed, or distracted. Not one of them can receive a wound, 

 without its being sympathetically and poignantly felt by the 

 whole. But such has been the state of the civilized world, 

 that each has had its turn of depression, during the eventful 

 period in which we have lived ; and it is therefore the more 

 difficult, at this moment, to establish any certain data 9 from 

 whence to draw sound and justifiable conclusions. We have 

 just emerged from a participation in the disasters with which 

 the world has been lacerated. Yet we already exhibit an ele- 

 vation so buoyant and elastic, that did we not know what has 

 passed, we should with difficulty believe that pressure and dis- 

 tress had existed. The agriculture of our country, inclu- 

 ding both tillage and pasturage, which Sully calls * 4 the two 

 breasts of the state," and by which I mean the art of bringing 

 forth from the earth, products of every species and description, 

 in every district of our country, must have been powerful and 

 efficient in the aggregate, to enable its professors to lay up 

 materials for commerce and manufactures, so abundant, that no 

 lack of them was experienced, when our ships again whitened 

 the ocean with their sails, which had been most lamentably 

 long unbent. Even in the short period since our emancipa- 

 tion from the difficulties, dangers and impediments, with 

 which war and the circumstances preceding it had embarrass- 

 ed us, our products are in plenty ; and the mass of husband- 

 ry has been encouraging, although in its details it may be found 

 deficient and objectionable, — If so much can be done, without 

 the assistance afforded by science, system and principle ; how 

 much more could have been accomplished, with the same phy- 

 sical and mechanical means, directed by intelligence and ag- 

 ricultural information ? Renovating worn lands has this ines- 

 timable consequence ; it multiplies products, in a degreee su- 



