Ices. Such a measure is of great import. It implies that 

 the collected, intelligent judgment of the nation was fully per- 

 suaded that American agriculture is not what it ought to be, 

 that it is a matter of national concern that a strong effort 

 should be made to introduce and spread a better system of 

 farming than is generally practised, and that this can be ef- 

 fectively done by the thorough instruction of the farmer in the 

 scientific principles and best practical precepts of his vocation. 

 The record of the debates that have attended the progress of 

 this measure, shows that the accumulating evidence of the 

 deep impoverishment of the soil, of the reckless waste of the 

 elements of vegetation, the enormous and unnecessary losses 

 in all branches of American husbandry, and the unquestion- 

 able superiority of foreign over American agriculture, im- 

 pressed the national legislature with the need of vigorous, and 

 the possibility of reformatory action. The measure is suited 

 to the time, when all the resources of the country should be 

 husbanded and developed to the utmost, to enable it to bear 

 with the least suffering the burdens of war. It is the proper 

 supplement to legislation for the encouragement of manu- 

 factures. England prepared herself for the impending strug- 

 gle with Napoleon by the establishment of her board of agri- 

 culture during the ministry of William Pitt. The Roman 

 senate sought to invigorate the failing Roman farms by caus- 

 ing the work upon husbandry of the Carthaginian Mago to be 

 translated and published at the public cost ; the only literary 

 work that is known to have received this august sanction. 

 Congress has provided in the college a more potent organ of 

 improvement than the agricultural board. INIore fortunate in 

 its opportunities than the Roman senate, it gives the Ameri- 

 can farmer the great book of nature, with science to interpret 

 to him, from its open page, the mysteries of his art. 



The action taken is wise. What is wanted is to have the 

 farmers of the land put into connection with the highest knowl- 

 edge of the natural laws of agriculture to which science and 

 observation have attained. In no way can this be done so 



