PROCEEDINGS. 



JUDGES' HALL, INTERNATIONAL 



EXHIBITION Q BOUNDS, PHILADELPHIA, 



September 12th, 1876. 



The National Agricultural Congress was 

 called to order by the President at 3 P. M., 

 and was opened with prayer by the Rev. G. 

 W. Minier, of Illinois. 



The order of business proposed by the Ex- 

 ecutive Committee was read by the Secretary 

 and approved by the Congress. 



Addresses of Welcome. 



Dr. Alfred L. Kennedy, President of the 

 Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, then 

 addressed the Congress as follows: 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the National 

 Agricultural Congress: It would have been a 

 source of great gratification to us all, had the 

 President of our old Agricultural Society greeted 

 you to-day. But he is absent by reason of sick- 

 ness and the duty has devolved on myself: 

 an humble member. I reed hardly assure you 

 that the duty is a pleasing one. Would that 1 

 were able to do it justice ! 



In this year of American jubilee, the present 

 and the past embrace each other. The old an 

 the new kiss one another. On this spot, conse- 

 crated to the brotherhood of nations and the re- 

 union of the American people, the Philadelphia 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture, now in its 

 eighty-second year, welcomes the National Ag- 

 ricultural Congress, just four years old. 



The two centuries meet. They meet and show 

 how similar were the aims of our fathers to those 

 which animate us. 



Tho Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agri- 

 culture was organized when Philadelphia was 

 the Federal Capital. The founders of the society 

 apprehended na restriction to the field of its op- 

 erations. These were to be as wide-spread as the 

 Union. It was, therefore, national in its objects 

 and its membership embraced the leading agri- 

 culturists of the new Union, who came hither to 

 the seat of government. Did time permit, it 

 would be a filial duty to trace the history of the 

 society, learn how, having created and defended 

 a nation, our fathers' next care was to promote 

 that industry upon which our national prosperi- 

 ty essentially depends. 



The removal of the capital to the District of 

 Columbia, lost to the society her national char- 

 acter. From her, numbers who learned within 

 her halls the value of organization, have gone to 

 the several states ; have built up there state and 

 county societies, and she stands to-day, hemmed 

 In it may be, but hemmed in by her own children 

 who have settled round her. 



Recognizing your objects and those of our 

 founders as almost identical, we hail your pres- 

 ence and anticipate its results with profound 

 gratification. For agriculture greatly needs to 



be promoted, and as a means to its promotion, to 

 be better appreciated. To secure this wished-for 

 consummation a national agricultural associa- 

 tion is the most effective. Let us look a little at 

 the estimate placed on our art. "Agriculture is 

 the noblest employment of man." Our children 

 write th*s truth in their school exercises, and the 

 politician who solicits our votes shouts it trom 

 the stump. But is it generally believed? If it 

 were, if it were, I say, regarded as true that the 

 practice of the art of the farmer is ennobling, 

 then the intelligent and benevolent gentlemen 

 who direct our reformatories would feel them- 

 selves constrained to provide that labor for their 

 inmates. But even in Philadelphia I say it with 

 shame of the city of my birth in our House of 

 Refuge our house of reformation for juvenile 

 off enders they are employed in mechanical pur- 

 suits adapted rather to a state penitentiary, in- 

 stead of being put at the reformatory labor of 

 the field. We welcome you gentlemen because 

 we hope that you will enjoin upon the directors 

 of the reformatories of the country the wisdom 

 and propriety of so locating those institutions 

 that agriculture may be utilized as a means of 

 reform. 



When the London "Punch" delineates the typ- 

 ical American and Mr. Punch is a pretty correct 

 delineator of sovereigns he represents him as 

 tall, lean and lank. 



Now, to correct these physical defects in the 

 genus homo is of course an easy task to that vo- 

 cation which has transformed the original wild 

 stock of the bovine race into the beautiful sym- 

 metry of the Devons and Durhams. 



But the typical American is not only too 

 "wiry." He is too nervous and too impulsive. 

 Can rural pursuits cure him? Most assuredly. 

 The feverish life of cities, relieved only by a 

 feverish rush to a fashionable watering place 

 after his wife and daughters, entail bodily ills 

 and mental woes upon him. He needs salubrious 

 air much. The sweet serenity of rural scenes 

 more. 



Sound minds in sound bodies must constitute 

 the foundation of the American race, if it is to 

 maintain its proud claim to be the "coming 

 race," and to this end more of our business men 

 and our men of wealth must live on farms. 



The railroads have given us quick transit. 

 When Richard Peters, a former president of our 

 society, whose farm lay just beyond Agricultural 

 Hal), had crossed Market street bridge on his 

 drive home, he was longer in reaching it than 

 you, Mr. President, would be now, starting from 

 the bridge by the cars of the Pennsylvania rail- 

 road in reaching Bryn Mawr or Rosemont or 

 Pooli or farming districts miles away. By the 

 Reading railroad, a student of the college with 

 which I am connected came daily during the last 

 term, sixty miles to lectures, returning in the 

 afternoon. The journey of 120 miles didn't hurt 

 him. He led his class. Why do not business 

 men more generally avail themselves of these 



