applied to the treatment of exhausted or diseased soils. It is 

 the administration of justice between acre and acre, seeing to it 

 from year to year that of one no more be required, and of 

 another no less than its due share of production. It is a gospel 

 of love to hill and plain, feeding hungry, clothing naked, giving 

 drink to thirsty fields, causing " the solitary place to be glad 

 and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose." Farming 

 possesses the sovereignty of the earth, having dominion " over 

 all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ;" over the 

 springing fountains and the brooks that run sparkling like 

 threads of silver among the hills ; over fields and meadows in 

 their variegated garb of grasses and grains, green and russet 

 and scarlet and gold ; over gardens and orchards with their 

 manifold beauty and luxuriance ; over all trees constituting, in 

 branch and leaf and blossom and endless variety of form and 

 color, the most enchanting growth with which the Creator has 

 embellished the earthly home of his human offspring ; over 

 every landscape on which it swings the axe or the scythe, drives 

 the plough or thrusts the spade, makes a fence or erects a 

 building ; inasmuch as it may adorn or disfigure it, make it a 

 thing of beauty or an eyesore, at its pleasure. 



I know of no other calling which has a power so large, a 

 jurisdiction so comprehensive ; no other to which it belongs as 

 a natural right to modify the physical conditions of the earth's 

 surface, and even to effect important changes by the clearing 

 or the preservation of forests, by lowering hills and exalting 

 valleys, in those climatic influences on which the health, vigor, 

 and prosperity of a community in so great a degree depend. 

 So I have said that the vocation of the farmer is not exceeded 

 in importance. " When tillage begins," said Daniel Webster, 

 *' other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of 

 human civilization." 



From this comes the corollary that no other vocation de- 

 mands a more thorough training and furnishing in all depart- 

 ments of natural science and history. The farmer should be 

 educated for his calling as the merchant, lawyer, physician, 

 minister. I care not how this education is obtained, — whether 

 from books, from oral instruction, from examples, or from 

 intelligent painstaking experiment. I only insist that it is of 

 the first consequence — demanded as a condition of the best 



