HON. MR. FOOTE'S ADDRESS. 147 



escapes their all-pervading governance. It is in subordination 

 to these laws that, " while the earth remaineth, seed-time and 

 harvest, cold and heat, summer and Avinter, day and night, shall 

 not cease;" in subordination to these, that all the periodical 

 changes and uniform transformations, which we witness in nature 

 around us, take place ; in subordination to these laws that the 

 elements conspire to effect the germination, increase and matu- 

 rity of every plant that rises from the ground, and that the veg- 

 etable productions of the earth sustain the life, promote the 

 growth, and minister to the comfort and happiness of the animal 

 creation ; and neither vegetable nor animal perfection can con- 

 sist with the violation of these laws. Hence the evident impor- 

 tance of a knowledge of these laws to man, and especially to 

 the husbandman, whose work it is, as received from the hand of 

 his Maker, "to till the ground," to preside over the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms, and to provide for the sustenance of the 

 human family. These all-pervading laws of which I speak, 

 when classified and grouped together, constitute what are called 

 the " Natural Sciences." For a farmer to study the natural 

 sciences, therefore, is but to acquaint himself with those laws 

 of nature to which all his operations are subject, and on whose 

 observance all his success must forever depend. 



How reasonable, then, nay, how important, how absolutely 

 indispensable, to the perfection of his art, that the tiller of the 

 soil should be a man of science ; not a " book farmer," if any 

 one dislike that epithet, but a farmer who diligently consults 

 the book of nature, and instead of submitting himself to the 

 guidance of sightless, mindless, stumbling chance, is guided by 

 fixed principles ; principles which cannot mislead him ; by laws 

 as immutable as are the foundations of the earth itself. And 

 how does this view of the subject cast contempt upon that shal- 

 low estimate which has sometimes been put upon the farmer's 

 art ; and how does it rebuke the narrow-minded policy of those 

 governments, which hold out no encouragement for the improve- 

 ment of this art of arts, and which would leave the tiller of the 

 soil to occupy a common level with the brutes he drives before 

 the plough. 



Agriculture is profitable, in that it has a direct tendency to 

 the moral improvement of man. 



