his material nature — produced, nourished and reproduced, as 

 that nature is from the earth and its fruits, man is a part of 

 the earth itself In common with all other productions, vege- 

 table and animal, he is of the earth, earthy. He has risen 

 from it ; he lives upon its all-nourishing bosom, and he returns 

 to it at last. Man in his material natui'e is simply and only of 

 the products of the soil which he eats, of the air which he 

 breathes, and of the water which he drinks, modified as that 

 combination is in him, as in other animals, by the heat and 

 light oi the sun. He is thus brought face to face with dead 

 inert matter, which is his father and mother and brother and 

 sister and child. The rocks of yesterday are in our bones to- 

 day. The iron that tinges the soil to-day will give the color 

 and vitality of our blood to-morrow. The mountain cliffs that 

 are being shattered by the earthquakes or lightning strokes, or 

 disintegrated by the frosts or the rains, will be absorbed by the 

 roots of the growing corn on which we feed, and so moulded 

 into humanity, soon to complete the cycle, by returning back 

 to inorganic matter. 



The first and most obvious relation of agriculture to 

 man, then, is that which it sustains to his physical nature. 

 From the products of the earth he supplies his temporal 

 wants, and agriculture is but the art of drawing from the 

 earth its most valuable productions in the greatest abundance. 

 This, then, is man's primary occupation on which depends 

 existence. It is the parent and head of other arts — the high- 

 est and noblest of them all. It is true that a few savages 

 might exist upon the spontaneous productions of the soil with- 

 out its cultivation, but civilized society could not so exist. 



Again consider the relation of agricultui-e to man's physical 

 development and the physical development carries with it inteL 

 lectual and moral development, for a sound mind is dependent 

 on a healthy body. All life and all character are susceptible 

 of modification, and man's more than all, since it is higher in 

 the scale of creation and has the largest sphere of individual 

 action. The brute cannot be debased or elevated beyond cer- 



