ADDRESS. 15 



SO often attach to discoveries, inventions, and new theories in our 

 day. Our farmers are familiar with facts which develop the princi- 

 ples on which this art depends. They are aAvare of the necessity of 

 keeping their varieties of corn, squashes, grains and fruits separate, 

 lest they should intermix and produce, not each after its kind, but 

 other sorts, unlike the original, sometimes as speckled as Jacob's cat- 

 tle. But science alone can teach them how to turn this law of nature 

 to the highest practical account ; and how by it to produce new and 

 valuable varieties, adapted to their particular location and climate. 



By a corresponding law in the animal kingdom, we already have 

 ornithologists, who pretend to breed fowls to order, in respect to size, 

 plumage, and other qualities ; and also among our experienced stock 

 breeders, some who profess to breed domestic animals with similar 

 exactness. Infinite Wisdom has fixed these laws and given us fac- 

 ulties to comprehend them, and they must be thoroughly understood 

 before farming can be raised to its legitimate and rightful position. 

 Witness an approximation towards this general result, in the improv- 

 ed breeds of our cattle, swine and horses, and in the endless number 

 and variety of fruits and flowers, produced the last twenty-five years 

 by artificial impregnation. Thus Mr. Knight, President of the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society, produced the Black Eagle and Elton 

 Cherry, the Dunmore pear, and other new and valuable fruits, per- 

 fectly suited to that latitiide ; and this process is as applicable to the 

 production of new grasses, grains, and vegetables, as to animals, 

 flowers and fruits. This principle also teaches the art of raising the 

 most valuable seeds, to avoid the immense annual loss of labor and. 

 money, from the use of that which either never germinates, or if it 

 does, produces an inferior crop. Age, which improves some seeds, 

 destroys others ; and the art, and importance of procuring the best, 

 are but imperfectly understood by most of our practical cultivators. 

 We have room but for a single fact. An association of scientific cul - 

 tivators exists within our knowledge, whose object is to raise seed for 

 each other. , The cabbage seed which they raise for themselves, they 

 sell for ten dollars a pound, but that which is raised without this care, 

 is sold for one dollar a pound ; hence the former which is really the 

 cheaper, will not pay a profit, because its superior worth is not un- 

 derstood by our farmers. 



We cannot refrain from another suggestion which we deem equal- 



