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to feel, already be said, with almost equal truth, of the 

 farmers of your Northern states. Of the west and south 

 I cannot as yet, from personal observation, speak. In 

 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, two younger Provinces, 

 I have seen a picture of what Maine and New Hampshire, 

 and Massachusetts especially, have been ; and in the gra- 

 dual conquest which persevering labor has in these states 

 achieved over drifted rocks and hungry gravels, and sandy 

 barrens, and ungenial swamps, I discover the resolute 

 spirit still living of those men who centuries ago dared to 

 cross a then wide and little known sea, in search of new 

 and freer homes, and whose descendants now till alike the 

 soils of the Old England and the New. Time has not 

 impaired the energy and enterprise of either ; I believe I 

 may say it has left their hearts unchanged too. 



And now you are ready to ask me, what those, who in 

 Europe are most in advance in the practice of the rural 

 arts, look forward to as likely to help on agriculture still 

 further. In what especially, you will enquire, do we of 

 Great Britain trust, who have thrown down the gauntlet 

 to the farmers of the world ? These questions I shall 

 answer by drawing your attention briefly, to what may be 

 regarded as the characteristic or living feature of the agri- 

 culture of our time — what you no doubt expect me briefly 

 to speak of, the direct applications, namely, of natural 

 science to the several branches of rural economy. 



The main purposes for which natural science is applied 

 to rural economy, are — 



First. To explain the reasons of practices already adopt- 

 ed, or of things already observed, and to supplant old and 

 defective by new and better usages. 



Second. To establish general principles, by means of 

 which, a short cut is provided for the unlearned, to the 



