352 



Agricultural Address. 



Vol. X. 



paid labour, the soil will become the strong- 

 est hold of national wealth and happiness ; 

 and in no country are advantages placed 

 within the reach of the agriculturist equal 

 to those which are found in Northern Ame- 

 rica. Here the husbandman is not borne 

 down by the tithes and impositions of feudal 

 power; the choicest productions of his labour 

 are not exacted by government to gratify an 

 idle and corrupt aristocracy, but as he wa- 

 ters the soil with the sweat of his brow, so 

 does he reap the fruits which she returns to 

 him, and it is the glory of his country that 

 he can devote them to himself, and not be 

 compelled to share them with kings: — that 

 his children, reared in habits of careful 

 industry, may gather its proceeds without 

 dividing them among those playthings of 

 royalty — the babies of queens. His private 

 interest is identified with the public good, 

 and whatever will advance the one, will 

 promote the other. His strength is ac- 

 knowledged, and his importance appreciated 

 by the nation, and it is time that he fell 

 himseJf rising into the dignity of his exalted 

 position — time that he should cease labour 

 ing as a mere automatan, following in the 

 wake of his fathers, and guided by their, in 

 stead of his own, experience, — time that he 

 should study and pursue agriculture as a 

 science, that he should acquaint himself 

 with those natural laws which are continu 

 ally in operation, and are producing the de 

 velopments which are daily obvious to his 

 senses^ but which he cannot understand : 

 that he should know the action that is pro- 

 duced upon vegetation, by the elements 

 which surround him. 



We know already that the harvest will 

 not ripen without the heat and light of the 

 sun — we know that the rain which falls 

 upon our fields is necessary to the produc 

 tion of their fruits — we know that the soil 

 upon which we sow the seed becomes im 

 paired, its fertility exhausted by a too fre- 

 quent repetition of similar crops ; but have 

 we ever inquired whether the roots which 

 push themselves into the earth, have mouths 

 to drink in the rain, and take up from the soil, 

 nourishment for their support and growth? 

 Have we ever investigated the properties of 

 light and heat, and traced their application 

 to the development and final decay of vege- 

 table matter? Have we ever learned, or 

 attempted to learn the peculiar adaptation 

 of certain manures to the different varieties 

 of soil, and the properties of both that may 

 combine to promote luxuriant growth? In 

 reflecting upon the fact of our own exist- 

 ence, did we ever form a conception of the 

 vital principle that gives us motion and sen- 

 sibility, and think of plants as being possess- 



ors of a degree of the same stimulating 

 force — whatever may be its name — and giv- 

 ing to them powers of production, increase, 

 and complete development? And did we 

 ever imagine that the plants which we tread 

 under our feet, have organs of respiration, 

 assimilation, secretion, and excretion, as ne- 

 cessary to their existence as the same class 

 of organs are to the support of ours ? And 

 when we remember that there is coursing 

 through all parts of our bodies a vital fluid, 

 without which we could not have a being, did 

 the truth ever present itself to our minds, 

 that the tree which the axe in our hands 

 levels to the ground, possesses a vital cur- 

 rent also, which not only circulates through 

 all its parts, but throws out into the atmos- 

 phere, the very principle which we inhale 

 into our lungs, to purify and vivify our blood, 

 and render it capable of sustaining life. 



These are propositions which it will be 

 interesting for us to consider. It is true 

 that the mechanical arrangements which 

 are necessary to the sustenance and growth 

 of animals and vegetables, as well as the 

 fluids which pass through them, are widely 

 different; but in both alike there is an emi- 

 nently wise adaptation of means to the end, 

 which we can not but admire. As plants 

 are destined to observe a fixed position, and 

 have not, as animals, the power of locomo- 

 tion, and at the same time require the 

 agency of the surrounding elements to sup- 

 port them, let us see what contrivance has 

 been adopted to carry out these particular 

 purposes. Take a seed — a grain of wheat — - 

 carry it, if you please, from some ancient 

 tomb, where it may have been buried for 

 centuries with the dead ; with others it was 

 one day rudely beaten from its hull by the 

 flail of the thresher; with others, too, it may 

 have been packed in heaps and trodden un- 

 der foot, yet there still remains safely se- 

 cured in its centre, a little germ that is 

 ready to put forth its vital energies as soon 

 as it may come in contact with its appropri- 

 ate stimulus. Cast it upon the prepared 

 soil. It matters not in what direction the 

 seed may fall, or what position it occupies. 

 If the end from which the sprout comes is 

 pushed downward into the earth, it never- 

 theless finds its way through the wall that 

 has imprisoned it, and soon bends its direc- 

 tion toward the surface; the roots which 

 spring from the other end, at first tending 

 upward, soon turn themselves in the oppo- 

 site direction, until they occupy their appro- 

 priate relation to the plant. Having now 

 made its attachments to the earth, and es- 

 tablished the primary means of communica- 

 tion with the sources of nourishment, it is 

 prepared to bring into action the numerous 



