8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



THE NEWER FEELING FOR NATURE. 



BY KEY. WILLAKD SCOTT, D.U., WORCESTER. 



Gentlemen of the Massachusetts State Board of xVgricul- 

 ture, I greet you to-day upon this meeting of your body, 

 and upon these beautiful college grounds, with deep feelings 

 of fellow sympathy, and of admiration for the noble work 

 you represent and promote. This is a good world to live 

 in, and our time is a good time. While nature has always 

 made a deep appeal to the human senses, — fair skies, fields 

 and waters which the eyes have enjoyed, glad voices and 

 melodies for the ear, and delicious and nourishino^ thinofs for 

 the taste and smell, — 3'et the past half-century has done 

 much to increase all this, especiallj' by putting a meaning 

 into it all, and separating it from most of the dark and 

 wicked superstitions which have so often misinterpreted or 

 terrorized it. There has been a great widenino- and strenofth- 

 ening of knowledo-e and faith about evervthinof. New laws 

 have been discovered, older known laws have been much 

 modified by better knowledge of them, and all our tempers 

 and habits have been chanavd bv our new wav of lookin*; at 

 the A\ orld and living in it. There has been a wholesome and 

 hap])y gain all around. 



For one thino-, the Avorld does not seem so laro;e and 

 strange as formerW, before the sea opened her doors both 

 over and under her. surface, and all nations and interests 

 became more closely united in sympathy and welfare. The 

 first practicable sub-marine cable does not date back of 186(3, 

 though thirteen years of painstaking attempts preceded it. 

 The first yacht which crossed the Atlantic was the "America," 

 in 1851, revolutionizing English yacht building, and becom- 

 ing the forerunner of a mighty ficn^t : and the first steamship 

 e(iui})p(^d at private ex})ense for an ocean cruise was Cornelius 



