H. K. OLIVER'S ADDRESS. 571 



urged. Cicero has some remarks, which, with their reasoning 

 and with but slight change, I might adopt here — though origi- 

 nally applied in another connection. " I own," he says in his 

 oration for the poet Archias, from which I have already made 

 quotation, — " I own, that there have been many men of ex- 

 cellent talent and of preeminent virtue, who, without learn- 

 ing, and by the almost divine force of nature herself, have been 

 wise and eminent, — nay, farther, that nature without learning, 

 is of greater efficacy towards the attainment of glory and virtue, 

 than learning without nature. But then, I affirm, that when to 

 an excellent natural talent, the advantages of learning are ad- 

 ded, then there results from such union, something great and 

 extraordinary." 



The appeal I have made thus far, has been urged more di- 

 rectly upon the farmer now actually engaged in his work, and 

 not in reference to the prospective farmer. For the right edu- 

 cation and culture of the latter, I shall have no fears, if I can 

 prevail upon the former to yield to my arguments and become, 

 as soon as may be, an educated man, self-educated, and they 

 are among the best educated. The moment he shall feel the 

 benefits of education, he will be most desirous that the young 

 farmer should have those benefits before he goes between the 

 plough-handles, or first swings the scythe. How the latter 

 shall be provided for, and what means of right education shall 

 be secured, — will naturally suggest themselves to the mind of 

 the former, when it shall itself have been liberalized by the 

 influences of this very education, for which we plead. He will 

 require an agricultural department to be established by con- 

 gress, as a part of the executive organization of the general 

 government. This, like many other useful and necessary pro- 

 jects, which it is the proper office of congress to discuss, and 

 when approved, as this particular one could not fail to be ap- 

 proved, to put into active operation, has, I regret to say it, 

 hitherto failed of success. 



Again, farmers will require that there be in each State, what 

 has already been established by our own legislature at its last 

 session, a State Board of Agriculture, with a working secretary, 

 competent in every department of agricultural science and art, 

 to act as an organ of communication, between the State gov- 

 ernment and the several agricultural societies throughout the 



