ADDRESS. 19 



ety. President Hitchcock, one of the agricultural Commissioners of 

 Massachusetts, that there are in Europe three hundred and fifty two 

 such institutions, several of which he visited, and all of which exert a 

 powerftd, and salutary influence, by the diff'usion of intelligence, and 

 by the elevation and improvement of this time honored art. In Re- 

 publican France there are seventy-five institutions of this kind under 

 Government patronage. To one of these she made an appropriation 

 in 1849 of nearly half a million of dollars. Another has already 

 graduated six hundred well educated agriculturists, who immediately 

 found honorable and lucrative situations at the head of their profes- 

 sion. Monarchical Russia has sixty eight of these schools ; some of 

 which are of a high order, and superior to those in other lands ; Ire- 

 land, down trodden, poor and miserable, has sixty-three of various 

 grades, many of them of recent origin, all striving for the recusitation 

 of her soil, and for her restoration to pristine wealth and prowess. 

 The result is certain, she is destined to rise ; aye, is already rising ; 

 for in many parts where sterility lately reigned, are now to be seen 

 highly cultivated and productive fields. 



One instance shall suffice. At the Glasnevin School, scholars by re- 

 quest came in from the field, and recited in a manner that would have 

 been creditable to any New England College in those natural sciences 

 upon which their practice depended, and their cultivation evinced their 

 skill in the art. By a rotation of crops and other improved arts, 

 founded on scientific principles, they were able to produce eighty 

 bushels of oats, and seven hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre. 



Such facts authorize the assertion that the regeneration of that ill- 

 fated country is certain. Poverty and starvation, may drive from her 

 shores thousands of her miserable peasantry, but a thriving and hap- 

 py population will succeed them. It is coming. Scotland is already 

 sending hither some of her intelligent and enterprising farmers. 

 And can youthful America, the school of freedom and the home of 

 enterprise, — the birth place of invention and genius — the land where 

 every son is a king, and every daughter a queen, in her zeal for im- 

 provement, long behold these successful experiments and remain in- 

 active ? The existence of such institutions among us, is only a ques- 

 tion of time. Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and other states, are 

 deliberating on the best mode of action. Foreign schools*may not be 

 congenial to our soil, but they will serve for models ; they will prove 



