tory in blood ; thus, the merchants who have built cities, cov- 

 ered rivers and lakes with steamers, and sent their ships to 

 every sea ; thus, in fine, the men who have given character 

 and tone to the nation. 



THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO SCIENCE. 



The farmers are necessarily the thinking and studying men, 

 for their business involves and demands a greater variety of 

 knowledge, scientific and practical, than any other occupation 

 in which man can engage. Many of the sciences were born 

 on the farm, actually called into existence by the necessity of 

 the husbandman, and their origin was coeval with the first 

 turning of the sod.. Astronomy and meteorology, the most 

 ancient and the most useful of sciences, were studied by the 

 shepherds and farmers before Abraham fed his flocks on the 

 plains of Mamre ; before Lot, separating from his kinsman, 

 pitched his tent towards Jordan ; before Joseph was sold into 

 Egypt, or Moses led the fugitive slaves, 3,000,000 strong, 

 through the Red Sea. They were the study of the Chaldeans, 

 Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese — all agricultural peoples from 

 the remotest antiquity. 



A knowledge of the times and seasons, of the rise and fall 

 of the rivers, of the ebb and flow of the tides, of the early 

 and latter rains, of the cycle of the periodical storms, of the 

 formation of the earth and heavens, of the influence of various 

 winds, of the foretelling of the weather by signs in the skies, 

 of the snows, the frosts and the dews — these were all subjects 

 of the closest observation as having an intimate bearing on the 

 labors of the husbandman. The researches of those early 

 nations were carried to an extent that would astonish such as 

 imagine that wisdom is altogether modern. 



The science of mechanics was first called into existence as 

 the handmaid of agriculture. The first wheel and axle was 

 used by the farmers of Egypt to raise the waters of the Nile 

 for irrigation. Botany, another name for horticulture, is only 



