1871.] FESTIVAL OF COMMEMORATION. 33 



that is within man, the finest sentiment which he possesses, and which 

 draws him with kindly affections toward his family and his friends, and 

 that finds expression in every form of art, the work of the poet, the 

 paintex*, the sculptor and every artist. But that taste is so developed 

 by esthetic culture that power is given us to convert an acre of ground 

 into the most charming picture, and that material which is ordinarily 

 used as an external protection to our dwellings is converted by the 

 hand of man into that which seems to come from the hand of God. 

 And it is the cultivation of this power which has given man so much 

 of his immortality. In Greece it wrote the history of great men and 

 great deeds in enduring marble, inspired all with the highest thoughts 

 of beauty, and everywiiere, and in all times it has brought forth the 

 work of our poets and our artists. 



Now it is one part, an important part of education, that this faculty 

 called taste should be given a proper direction in our earliest days, and 

 I think too great care cannot be taken that all should be accustomed 

 in early life to those objects which will give a proper direction to our 

 tastes hereafter. The young man brought up among the scenes and 

 objects of the farm goes to the city, acquires a fortune, and instantly 

 begins to exercise those tastes, which he acquired in his childhood. It 

 is his horse and his dog that are his favorites — but there is danger in 

 horses and dogs. I am not entirely in favor of what are called agri- 

 cultural horse trots. I only desire that the people should find recrea- 

 tion to relieve the burden and monotony of life; and I would substi- 

 tute for these tastes so common among us, were it possible, those finer 

 tastes which come with our early associations, with horticulture 

 and poetry and art, and I would rejoice to see every man as he 

 acquires his fortune, gratifying his tastes by devotion to his garden, 

 instead of to other forms of amusement less refined and less elevating. 

 I would also rejoice to see every laboring man so educated and so situ- 

 ated that his house and his garden would be his favorite objects of 

 care and culture in his hours of leisure. I join hands therefore with 

 my venerable friend in the work of developing agriculture. Like Vir- 

 gil I find no other business than that of teaching the best modes of 

 conducting what may be called the masculine side of the question, and 

 so I discuss the best modes of cultivation, the best implements of hus- 

 bandry, and the best animals to be placed upon our farms. I have no 

 other work to do, and I am sorry to say that I am allowed to do no 

 other. [Laughter.] 



He proceeded to speak of his interest in practical farming and 

 alluded to several points in which much j-et remains to be accom- 

 plished, before perfection is reached. One of these points was the 

 construction of ploughs : he considered the present implement as 

 wrong in its principle of construction, and said it must be and ought 

 to be supplanted by something better. He considered even Knox's 

 line " g f 4 " a failure. (This allusion to the elementary line in the 

 5 



