18 



with the present. Johnson's How Crops Grow ; 

 and How Crops Feed ; Darwin's Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication, and the now re- 

 gpectable array of more special books, bearing 

 on many branches of agricultural science may 

 even be considered tha product of the last quar- 

 ter of a century. Attempts at scientific agri- 

 cultural education have been commenced in 

 nearly every state of the Union, under the agri- 

 cultural and mechanical college grant. A great- 

 ly extended test and use of fertilizers, has been 

 made in all the old states. The effects of our 

 variable climate on animal and vegetable life, 

 begin to be comprehended in the light of pub- 

 lic and private observations. The physiology of 

 plants, and the discovery and dissemination of 

 new varieties of grains, vegetables and fruits, 

 are studied and prosecuted with vigor. The 

 principles of animal life in the breeding and 

 feeding of domestic animals, are studied and 

 applied as never before. 



I do not say this in boastf ulness, for I believe 

 as compared with other nations, we have much 

 to learn, though I hope we have also some- 

 thing to teach. The desire, and I may add the 

 necessity, of immediate results, has made our 

 agriculture and our science somewhat super- 

 ficial and hasty, and not always sound. I only 

 claim that we are " marching on." 



THE GENERAL RESULT. 



In considering these and other causes now 

 at work, I conclude that the agricultural class 

 of the United States, in common with that of 

 other countries, has reached a point where its 

 next movemeat may be an important one, not 

 only for itself, but mankind. The increased 

 intelligence of mankind, resulting from more 

 general and free intercommunication, is having 

 its effect on the conservative and slowly influ- 

 enced agricultural class. It awakens to claim 

 and take a part in the direction of affairs to 

 share in that democratic possession of society 

 and government, which De Tocqueville, more 

 than a generation ago, regarded as inevitable. 



Increased intelligence has improved our own 

 soils, adopted better tools, selected better grains 

 and grasses, grown heavier crops, bred better 

 animals, and in many ways improved the quali- 

 ty and the quantity of our agriculture. The 

 farm houses and the out houses, are more 

 adapted to their purpose. But the increased 

 intelligence which has brought all this about, 

 cannot rest here, even when improved agricult- 

 ure becomes far more common than now. 

 With increased knowledge comes consciousness 

 of the fact, that the agricultural class is un- 

 equally weighted in the race of life. The corn 

 crop, as our statistican, Mr. Dodge, has said: 

 " cannot be cornered," and the same fact is in a 

 good degree true of all agricultural products. 

 There is nearly complete mobility and free trade 

 in agricultural products. If the demand be- 

 comes limited, or if there is over production, 



the half-million farmers scattered over the 

 Union cannot meet and resolve to plant half 

 their land next year. They cannot adopt The 

 tactics of the coal miners, the iron men or the 

 book publishers, in preventing the free work- 

 ing of the law of supply and demand. They 

 cannot control prices like the trader, and trans- 

 porter for a like reason. The power, or at 

 least the habit of combination is waating. 



UNEQUAL LEGISLATION. 



With increased knowledge also comes the con- 

 viction that the statute laws, as well as the 

 "laws of trade," have been controlled in the in- 

 terest of others than the agricultural class. Tho 

 laws of taxation in nearly every state with 

 which I am acquainted are most burdensome 

 to its farmers. The bank charters and rail road 

 charters give dangerous powers over the com- 

 merce and transportation of agricultural pro- 

 ducts, as do the powers granted telegraph com- 

 panies over the transmission of commercial in- 

 telligence. It has been deemed necessary to 

 "encourage" manufactures by tariff s; book mak- 

 ing by copyright ; invention by patents ; nation- 

 al banks by gratuitous issues of notes ; periodi- 

 cals by cheap postage; but the agriculturist with 

 the exception of a tariff on sugar and wool and 

 a cheap postage law in relation to seeds and 

 cions, which Senator Hamlin and the express 

 companies made haste to repeal, has been left 

 to exemplify the working of the Laises faire 

 principle, so far as help was concerned. 



This knowledge and these convictions will bring 

 the remedy needful to a prosperous prosecution 

 of agriculture a fair field and no favor. It may 

 come easily with the irresistible force of an en- 

 lightened and judicious public opinion : but it is 

 more probable that, like other great movements 

 against accustomed and vested wrong, its way 

 must be fought out with tongue and pen. 



Gentlemen, I have touched hastily only a few 

 of the many topics that this subject and this oc- 

 casion suggest. But, perhaps, I have said enough 

 to show the vastness and the importance of the 

 domain, geographical, scientific and economical, 

 that an organization like this Should attempt to 

 occupy. I believe that the addresses of the able 

 gentlemen who have consented to come before 

 us, will adduce still more incontrovertible evi- 

 dence of the fact; and I trust the day is not far 

 distant when those annual gatherings, like those 

 of the Agricultural Society of France, shall 

 number their hundreds and thousands of spec- 

 ialists in every department of theoretical and 

 practical agriculture. And when I look upon 

 this vast array of the agricultural products and 

 machinery of our country, supplemented by 

 those of the remotest quarter of the globe, I 

 think that even we, who, sometimes are half-% 

 ashamed of our own enthusiasm, do not half 

 comprehend the magnitude and importance of 

 the work in which we are engaged. When the 

 farmers of the world become what we would 

 have them ; what the object lessons of this great 

 exhibition, and the discussions of like gatherings 

 shall make them, we shall enter upon that gold- 

 en age of equality of rights and duties, which 

 the democratic theory of government necessi- 

 tates, but which can be only entirely reached 

 through future years of earnest labor on the 

 part of the friends of agriculture. The great 

 work of the next generation 1 apprehend, is to 

 secure the laboring class its rights of education 

 and thrift ; and the mass of this class is made 

 up of the men in whose behalf we have gathered 

 here to-day. 



