SECRETARY'S REPORT. Ill 



seen the whole might of a huge Milesian thrown ineffectnally 

 upon a lever, which the skill of an American lad would at 

 once render serviceable. The highest display perhaps is exhib- 

 ited in the steam-engine, powerful almost beyond limit, yet 

 controlled by a touch. 



On our own land we see its wide extremes. The dusky 

 squaw, the aboriginal tiller of the soil, with a rudely-shaped 

 stone, planted her few grains of maize in the virgin soil, and 

 with an ignorant but truthful confidence, waited till the Great 

 Spirit — He who " sends his rain upon the just and the unjust," 

 who had long ages before promised that " seed time and 

 harvest should not fail " upon the earth, — should with his 

 genial sun, his gentle dew and rain from heaven, bring forth 

 " the blade, and then the ear, and after that the full corn in 

 the ear," — 



" Till at length a smaill green feather 

 From the earth shot slowly upward, 

 And before the summer ended 

 Stood the maize In all its beauty, 

 With its shining robes about it, 

 And its long, soft, yellow tresses. 

 And still later when the autumn 

 Changed the long, green leaves to yellow, 

 And the soft and juicy kernels 

 Grew like wampum, hard and yellow, 

 Then the ripened ears she gathered." 



She parched the scanty product of her cultivation and cracked 

 it in some water-worn pot-hole of the rocks, while her red- 

 skinned partner, if successful, struck the straggling deer, or 

 speared the silvery salmon. 



From this normal style of cultivation and of life — this lowest 

 exhibition of physical force as applied to produce the necessaries 

 of life, how have we advanced step by step, as science, like the 

 eastern sun, has gradually risen on us, dissipating the darkness, 

 quickening every energy and shedding light in the dark places. 

 "What an immense advance has educated labor made, and how 

 wonderfully it is developed in our knowledge of the nature of 

 the soils, their capabilities and their deficiencies ; the nature of 

 the multitude of plants, their requirements and how to su))i)ly 

 them ; our ingenious and almost perfect tools, implements and 



