LIGHT IN DARK PLACES. 223 



tails, so that we can learn from the words they utter how to 

 carry out the various processes they undertake to explain, but 

 they give us general ideas upon subjects which we have not 

 known much about before, and upon those subjects which are 

 familiar to us they give us hints and suggestions which will be 

 of value to us in our future operations ; and we shall receive, 

 through the report of the Board of Agriculture, these addresses 

 in full, to which we can turn our attention and receive the in- 

 formation we need. I do not apprehend that we shall all agree 

 with everything that has been said. We may not agree with all 

 the remarks that have been made upon the^subject of manures. 

 We may not agree with the learned and genial Prof. Agassiz on 

 the subject of glaciers. 



But however we may differ on minor topics, we shall agree on 

 the great facts. We shall agree with Col. Weld that we want 

 men to test the manures that are offered in the market, so that 

 we shall not be cheated ; and so with regard to all the other 

 matters that have been discussed — the dairy, by Mr. Willard, 

 the preservation of meat, by Prof. Gamgee, whose labors, I may 

 say, if successful in transporting the beef of Texas to European 

 countries, will be more effectual in dictating a treaty with Eng- 

 land than will be the labors of our talkative ambassador in that 

 country. I say that the efforts of these men cannot but be of 

 great benefit to the farmers of the State. 



Now I came here almost a stranger to this Board of Agricul- 

 ture, and comparatively so to this Agricultural College. You 

 know that it has been related by poets that Jove sometimes 

 nods ; Homer became weak sometimes in the great strain of the 

 Iliad ; our great Daniel Webster, whom we all honor, nodded 

 in the seventh of ]\Iarch speech ; and Prof. Agassiz has told you 

 that he was weak enough to oppose the Agricultural College of 

 Massachusetts. After these great exemplars you will not be 

 surprised that our Berkshire society, worked upon by the idea 

 that the Board of Agriculture was an expensive institution, sent 

 a petition to the legislature last year for its abolition. The leg- 

 islature, perhaps wiser than our society, perhaps not so wise, 

 neglected that petition, and the Board of Agriculture yet sur- ■ 

 vives ; and I can say, as Prof. Agassiz said with regard to the 

 college, that I do not regret the existence of the Board of Agri- 

 culture, when we can bring together such men as are assembled 



