No. 3. 



Silas WrigliVs Address 



101 



Connect with these considerations of ex- 

 tent of country, diversity of soils, varieties 

 of climate, and partial and imperfect culti- 

 vation, the present agricultural prospects of 

 this country. Witness the rapid advances 

 of the last dozen years in the character of 

 our cultivation, the quality and quantity of 

 our productions from a given breadth of 

 land, and the improvements in all the imple- 

 ments by which the labour of the farmer is 

 assisted and applied. Mark the vast change 

 in the current of educated mind of the coun- 

 try, in respect to this pursuit; the awakened 

 attention to its high respectability as a pro- 

 fession, to its safety from hazards, to its 

 healthfulness to mind and body, and to its 

 productiveness. Listen to the calls for in- 

 formation, for education, upon agricultural 

 subjects, and to the demands that this edu- 

 cation shall constitute a department in the 

 great and all-pervading system of our com- 

 mon school education, a subject at this mo- 

 ment receiving the especial attention, and 

 being pressed forward by the renewed ener- 

 gies of this Society. Behold the numbers 

 of professors, honoured with the highest tes- 

 timonials of learning conferred in our coun- 

 try, devoting their lives to geological and 

 chemical researches calculated to evolve the 

 laws of nature connected with agricultural 

 production. Go into our colleges and insti- 

 tutions of learning, and count the young 

 men toiling industriously for their diplomas, 

 to qualify themselves to become practical 

 and successful farmers, already convinced 

 that equally with the clerical, the legal, and 

 the medical professions, that of agriculture 

 requires a thorough and systematic educa- 

 tion, and its successful practice the exercise 

 of an active mind devoted to diligent study. 



Apply these bright and brightening pr'os- 

 pects to the almost boundless agricultural 

 field of our country, with its varied and sa- 

 lubrious climate, its fresh and unbroken soils, 

 its cheap lands and fee simple titles, and 

 who can hope, if he would, to turn the in- 

 clinations of our people from this fair field 

 of labour and of pleasure? Here the toil 

 which secures a certain independence is 

 sweetened by the constant and constantly 

 varying exhibitions of nature in her most 

 lovely forms, and cheered by the most be- 

 nignant manifestations of the wonderful 

 power and goodness of nature's God. Cul- 

 tivated by the resolute hands and enlighten- 

 ed minds of freemen, owners of the soil, 

 properly educated, as farmers, under a wise 

 and just administration of a system of liberal 

 public instruction, should and will be, and 

 aided by the researches of geology and 

 chemistry, who can calculate the extent ot 



the harvests to be gathered from this vast 

 field of wisely directed human industry? 



The present surplus of bread-stuffs of this 

 country could not have been presented in a 

 more distinct and interesting aspect than 

 during the present year. A famine in Eu- 

 rope, as wide-spread as it has been devas- 

 tating and terrible, has made its demands 

 upon American supplies, not simply to the 

 extent of the ability of the suffering to pur- 

 chase food, but in superadded appeals to 

 American sympathy in favour of the desti- 

 tute and starving. Every call upon our 

 markets has been fully met, and the heart 

 of Europe has been filled with warm and 

 grateful responses to the benevolence of our 

 country and of our countrymen, and yet the 

 avenues of commerce are filled with the 

 productions of American agriculture. Surely 

 the consumption of this country is not now 

 equal to its agricultural production. 



If such is our surplus in the present lim- 

 ited extent and imperfect condition of our 

 agriculture, can we hope that an exclusive 

 domestic market is possible, to furnish a de- 

 mand for its mature abundance? In this 

 view of this great and growing interest, can 

 we see a limit to the period, when the United 

 States will present, in the commercial mar- 

 kets of the world, large surpluses of all the 

 varieties of bread-stuffs, of beef, pork, butter, 

 cheese, cotton, tobacco, and rice, beyond the 

 consumption of our own country? And who, 

 with the experience of the last few years 

 before him, can doubt that the time is now 

 at hand, when the two great staples of wool 

 and hemp will be added to the list of our 

 exportations? 



These considerations, and others of a kin- 

 dred character, which time will not permit 

 me to detail, seem to me, with unfeigned 

 deference, to prove that the agriculture or 

 the United States, for an indefinite period 

 yet to come, must continue to yield annual 

 supplies of our principal staples, far beyond 

 any possible demand of the domestic mar- 

 ket, and must therefore remain, as it now is 

 and has ever been, an exporting interest. 

 As such, it must have a direct concern in 

 the foreign trade and commerce of the coun- 

 try, and in all the regulations of our own 

 and of foreign governments which affect 

 either, equal to its interest in a stable and 

 adequate market. 



If this conclusion be sound, then our farm- 

 ers must surrender the idea of a domestic 

 market to furnish the demand, and measure 

 the value of their productions, and must pre- 

 pare themselves to meet the competition of 

 the commercial world in the markets of the 

 commercial world, in the sale of the fruits 



