202 [Assembly 



gaged in awakening the vast farming interest of this country to the ful- 

 ftlmenl of Washington's wish. 



He knew, and all great men know, that the cultivation of the earth 

 is our very first and our most delightful duty. That Paradise lost by 

 transgression can only be regained here on earth by the sweat of our 

 brows, in clearing away thorns and briars, and causing our vallies to 

 show forth their golden liarvests, and our gardens to blossom with 

 roses. All savage life is without agriculture worth any notice. All 

 semi-wild existence is without a garden. By due care and exercise of 

 intelligence, animals of a wild nature are subdued to domestic habits. 

 Man, in the pride of his high standing, as one created in the likeness 

 of God, is capable of subduing all ihings on earth to his own uses. 

 He flies on the back of the horse. He rides the enormous elephant 

 in triumph. He makes the little ox of former ages, weighing not more 

 ( than three or four hundred pounds, weigh^t;e thousand. He will now 

 gel from one acre a thousand bushels of valuable roots. He makes the 

 desert soils become cultivable fields and gardens ! He will have the 

 earth bear a thousand happy beings where it bore but one unenlight- 

 ened savage ! He will now travel through his farms and gardens at 

 the speed of forty miles an hour, and he prints the Holy Book by mil- 

 lions on millions by the same steam power by which he flies ! 



Happy are we to be in this period of time, when the temple of Ja- 

 nus is truly closed ; and when those of the Almighty are hourly rising 

 from the ground, all through the civilized world, and unfolding their 

 portals to a happier race. 



No man ever wrought in the field or garden with his own hands, 

 without becoming more or less purified by the work. God has com- 

 manded it, and he has blessed it. In all that man does, except in the 

 farm and garden, remember that he can, if he will, commit forgery. 

 But in these he must be true. He has no art, no magic by which he 

 can simulate a flower, a grain of wheat, or an ox ! Be the evil spirit 

 in him what it may, in all these great productions of Almighty power, 

 as the agent of that power, he is compelled to be true. Nature will 

 not obey tiie evil spirit, and enable him to tell you a falsehood in these 

 things. The very man who will sell you chalk and water for milk, 

 cannot sell you rye for whkat, a violet for a rose, or a sheep for an 

 ox ! 



