236 [Assembly 



dent be helped onward in their career. We should not willingly com- 

 mit our rights or health to the care of one unprepared by diligent stu- 

 dy for his work ! Is no preparation requisite by him who would so- 

 licit from the earth its treasures ? The physician by careful labor in- 

 vestigates the causes of disease, and by minute analysis defines the 

 action of each remedy. He studies the physical constitution of his 

 patient, and not blindly, but with thought and foresight acts. 



The farmer is the physician of the soil — the doctor of grains and 

 grasses. He should know when and why to drain off hurtful fluids, 

 to neutralize noxious elements, and correct destructive tendencies. 

 He must learn to knock reverently at the door where nature keeps 

 her mysteries concealed from vulgar gaze. But if he do thus knock, 

 ' it shall be opened to him. In your own State, not less than five hun- 

 dred thousand men compose her agricultural strength. Of these how 

 few there are who listen with living ear to nature's teachings. Yet 

 her laws are simple and uniform, and from the diligent inquirer she 

 never turns away. Between the proud tree of the forest, the monarch 

 of a century, and the constitution of the soil which nourishes its roots, 

 there is a close and immediate connection. But centuries passed 

 away, and the oak, and the beech, and the pine, in their several ge- 

 nerations, flourished and decayed, before this simple truth was reveal- 

 ed to man. Between the solid trunk and spreading branch, and the 

 grains and grasses that grow upon the same soil, the same intimate 

 and beautiful relationship exists. 



The scientific agriculturist, who ascertains what constituents com- 

 pose his soils, and the various grains which he would grow, has in 

 his own hand the law which God established, and by which he works 

 in his creation ; for not a blade of grass nor blushing flower springs 

 up by the way side, that owes not its life, and its beauty, and its fra- 

 grance to laws which He ordained, but which by earnest seeking 

 man may find out. The ploughman who whistles as he works *' for 

 want of thought," will not read the book before him, for he does not 

 know that it is opened. It is a sealed volume to him, while all the 

 time to the open eye its pages glow with beauty and instruction, Un. 

 der the surface of the earth there is a soil where other elements exist 

 in diff'erent combinations, and with his plough he turns it up to the 

 fresh air, mixing the two soils together, so that each shall supply the 



