12 Address. 



from the exhaustless maw of the West. The next cry will be for scientific 

 agriculturists who shall repair the broken ways of the hasty forerunners, 

 and enable the populations who have stripped the surface of its richness, 

 as their ancestors the rings from the ears and noses of the aborigines, to 

 restore the land by the improvements in agricultural practice, which alone 

 can enable them to compete with foreign prices, or even produce enough 

 for the adequate support of the millions so soon to dot the whole regions 

 on which now range the Indian, the bison, and the caravan of the emigrant. 

 But whilst we are ready to admit that agriculture is a fundamental source 

 of our national prosperity, that the wearing out of land in the older and 

 Western states is a matter of serious concern; that a remedy is needed, 

 many are disposed to question the propriety of considering agriculture as 

 a science that can act with precision and be moulded into shape, form and 

 continued progress, but rather like a pile of bri'eks of different sorts and 

 sizes, from which all can take and shape such fabric as each individual 

 mind conceives, and then instead of one uniform structure we have thous- 

 ands of incomplete, incongruous ones. But look further and see some master 

 builder whose sagacity and skill are equal to the task of selection, and con- 

 structing a symmetrical edifice, and you will realize that the fault is our 

 own, not that of the material, if the structure is not as it should be. 



But you say, agriculture is uncertain in its results, depending upon the 

 nature of the soil, the character of the climate, the atmosphere, and seasons, 

 as well as instruments of culture, to produce its best effects, or any im- 

 proved effect at all. TTow can it be a science adapted to man's capabilities, 

 and upon which he can rely to restore the neglected soils and make the 

 barren desert blossom like the rose ? Agricultural science is empirical,, ex- 

 perimental, and so are the acknowledged sciences of medicine, law and 

 divinity — all tentative, and therefore progressive and adapting themselves 

 to the needs of every climate, soil and disposition. It depends upon the 

 character of those who use these sciences, whether they are mere trades 

 for quacks, for there are quacks in religion, and quacks in medicine, and law, 

 and politics, and agriculture. " Man is a dupable animal," and there is 

 scarcely any one who may lot, like a trout, be taken by tickling. So un- 

 certain is the science of medicine, that, according to an old physician, 

 seven-tenths of the patients do not die of their diseases but of the improper 

 or excessive quantities of medicines given to them. A lady once .said to 

 the celebrated Petit, " so skillful an anatomist as you are, ought certainly 

 to enre all diseases." He frankly replied, "von mistake, madam; it is 



