288 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



great improvements on mere oral traditions. But the art of 

 printing, a discovery of the Middle Ages, was the morning star 

 throwing out its mellow light at the dawn of a brighter his- 

 toric day. The growth of this art to a state of comparative 

 perfection, and the increased power of its machinery and 

 appliances, have been truly wonderful. The mammoth 

 presses and binderies now send forth papers and books, scat- 

 tering them like the leaves of autumn over lands civilized, and 

 over parts of heathendom. Works treating of other arts, of 

 the sciences, of religious topics, and those merely literary, 

 are in almost countless numbers of copies wafted to the homes 

 of the millions. The art of writing precedes, and necessarily 

 supplies matter for this. The art of printing has thus enlisted 

 the contributions and cooperation of the brightest geniuses of 

 the modern ages. Poets have sung for it, divines, statesmen, 

 orators, and literary persons generally, have furnished mate- 

 rial for it to work upon, and colleges and seminaries of learn- 

 ing have developed minds to cater to its demands. It sheds 

 its benign light upon peasant as well as prince, and its adver- 

 tisements of the products of the farm are far more influential 

 than are those of all other n^eans. 



This art so inspired the genius of Benjamin Franklin as to 

 prepare him for those great discoveries in science which have 

 since associated his name with the names of Sir Isaac Newton 

 and Robert Fulton, and for those views and reflections on 

 political economy which have placed him in history by the 

 side of a Solon, a Lycurgus, and a Napoleon Bonaparte. And 

 this same art is doing quite as important a work in these later 

 times, by aiding such minds as those of Agassiz and Goess- 

 mann in the detection of those forces in nature which are to 

 assist agricultural operations to a degree unknown before, 

 while the toiling millions will be guarded against impositions, 

 such as those to which, in quite too many cases, they have 

 been subjected. Public addresses have, it is true, been useful 

 in this work, and will doubtless still be so ; but the press is 

 the great power through which such minds are making the 

 nobler achievements in the agricultural as well as in other 

 interests. 



On the other hand, agriculturists supply not only the 

 material on which, when prepared, those "words that bum" 



