42 



impression exists as to the feelings of my countrymen 

 towards you as a community, or as individuals. We do 

 not envy or regret your rapid growth and prosperity as a 

 people — we are proud of it. We do not dislike you in- 

 dividually — we are predisposed, rather, to see good in you 

 and to like you. Whatever sour men on either side 

 of the water may say, you may rest assured that there is 

 a comer in almost every heart at home, which especially 

 warms towards the North American, whether from the 

 Colonies or from the States, and a warm seat at many a 

 fire side, if he will come and occupy it. It may be old 

 fashioned, gentlemen, but we all still think at home that 

 blood is thicker than water, and if any of you doubt it, we 

 beg you, like Mr. Colman, to come among us, and honestly 

 and frankly to try whether it is so or not. 



If I were asked to give a special reason why a know- 

 ledge of the scientific principles of agriculture is more ne- 

 cessary among you than among any other existing people, 

 I would mention the great extent of your territorial do- 

 minion, and the varied soils, climates and cultures, which 

 your people encounter, as your dominion over the forest 

 and prairies extends. When you take this fact in connection 

 with an other, which is no less familiar to you, that a 

 general set of your population, like a great moving tide, is 

 carrying them towards the south and west — so that the 

 old tillage and crops of one year are often deserted by the 

 mover for a new form of tillage, and the culture of new 

 crops in the next — you will see how useful to the shifting 

 agriculturist himself it must be, and how beneficial to the 

 whole community, that he should possess some degree of fa- 

 miliarity with those principles, not only of Geology to which 

 I have already made especial allusion, but of Chemistry and 

 Botany also, which shall enable him in whatever circum- 

 stances of soil, of climate or of tillage he is^ placed, to make 



