ADDRESS. 



" THE efforts to extend the dominion of man over nature," 

 says Bacon, the great master of Philosophy " is the most 

 healthy and most noble of all ambitions." This admirable 

 sentiment is in nothing more true than in its application to 

 agriculture. Here man exercises dominion over nature ; ex- 

 erts a power more nearly than any other resembling a creative 

 power ; commands the earth on which he treads to waken her 

 mysterious energies ; spreads fertility over barrenness ; scat- 

 ters the beauties and glories of the vegetable creation, where 

 before all was desolate ; compels the inanimate earth to teem 

 with life ; and to impart sustenance and power, health and 

 happiness to the countless multitudes, who hang upon her 

 breast and are dependent on her bounty. 



Agriculture is the great interest of every community ad- 

 vanced beyond the savage state. I mean no invidious dis- 

 tinction. The interests of the social body are various ; and 

 in proportion to its improved condition its wants are multiplied 

 to an indefinite extent. Many hands and many arts are ne- 

 cessary to erect, support, furnish, light up, adorn the grand 

 superstructure of society, and supply the wants and provide 

 for the entertainment of its innumerable and insatiate guests. 

 The division of labor is one of the most important improve- 

 ments of civilization, and one of the surest evidences of its 



M3G8G2O 



