606 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



into his ill-conducted asylum. If the farmer will use the same 

 energy in the improvements of his processes as in the invest- 

 ments of his spare funds, he will find that he has a noble art, 

 capable of calling into action the best talents of his smartest 

 son. All the sciences are the adjuncts of agriculture, and the 

 importance of agriculture as a public interest is beyond all 

 others. The merchant is but the factor of the farmer. Cities 

 are built on the commissions earned by their inhabitants act- 

 ing as the brokers of the farmers, receiving and finding market 

 for his products and paying him with those of other countries 

 in exchange. The wealth of those cities is constituted of the 

 mere commissions consequent upon such exchanges, and they 

 owe their importance simply to the concentration of these 

 minor points of national wealth as compared with the greater 

 amount of wealth diffused through the agricultural community. 

 The day is fast arriving when an educated class of farmers 

 will, in our halls of legislation, claim as their right, a fair per- 

 centage at least of the public treasury, of which they contribute 

 nine-tenths, for the advancement of agriculture as an art, and 

 we shall not long be contented with the empty compliments of 

 legislators who have forgotten the recommendation of the 

 IMMORTAL Washington for the establishment of a home depart- 

 ment of agriculture, and who now amuse us with vague prom- 

 ises which they have no intention of fulfilling. 



Before leaving the subject of the general importance of agri- 

 culture, I would remark, that one per cent, upon the agricul- 

 tural crops of this year, would be greater than the total amount 

 of income of our government from imports, and every other 

 source during the last four years. Our Indian corn crop alone 

 will reach 700,000,000 of bushels, worth, at export value, $350,- 

 000,000. Our hay crop exceeds this amount, and indeed we 

 have many crops which far exceed in value the much talked of 

 cotton. It owes its importance, as compared to the others, to 

 the fact of meeting so large an export, thus registering its value 

 at our custom houses, and causing it to be continually kept 

 before the public eye. Who among those at your ploughing 

 match to-day can doubt that if the government had offered a 

 premium of $10,000 for the best improvement in the plough 

 within any consecutive five years, that it would have called 

 into action mechanical talent connected with practical experi- 



