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There is another cause which has been most detrimental 

 to the interests of agriculture ; the baneful effects of which 

 have been felt in every age. A great part of the bone and 

 sinew of every nation has been drawn from the field to the 

 camp. War, needless and unjust war, has left one country 

 untilled, to spread ruin and desolation over another. Had 

 the lives and treasures, wasted in war, been employed in 

 cultivating the soil, and opening roads and canals from one 

 section of country to another, who has imagination to con- 

 ceive what must have been the present state of the world ? 

 Who will venture to estimate the increased wealth and pop- 

 ulation of the different nations — the facilities of communica- 

 tion — the ease and plenty which would every where abound 

 — and the advances which would have been made in all the 

 arts, sciences, comforts, and elegancies of life ? 



Agriculture has been left to struggle with the ignorance, 

 as well as to suffer from the wickedness of man. It had to 

 crawl into existence under every disadvantage. The quali- 

 ties of plants and the means of propagating or destroying 

 them, as they were found useful or noxious, were lessons to 

 be learned without an instructer. The like ignorance pre- 

 vailed respecting animals. What species were proper to 

 domesticate, how they could be supported, and to what 

 uses they could be applied, were inquiries which could be 

 solved only by experiment. When we turn to the imple- 

 ments of husbandry, similar, if not greater difficulties pre- 

 sent themselves. Vast forests are to be annihilated, the 

 firm soil loosened that your seeds may send out their slender 

 roots, and heavy burdens removed from the field to places 

 of safety. What implements are necessary to effect all this, 

 and how and where are they to be procured ? Who knows 

 the properties of iron ? In what mountain is the ore con- 

 cealed ? Who can did it up, separate the metal from the 

 dross, and without tools or patterns, fashion tools for the 

 farmers use ? Ages on ages must have rolled away, before 



