ergy of the Teutonic blood — above all, emulous of the 

 agricultural renown of the Syracuse of distant times, and 

 by the application of more mind and knowledge, to a less 

 exuberant soil in a less favored clime, bent on creating a 

 new granary of the nations, an unfailing western store 

 house to a great and growing people. 



It is a happy omen to me, coming among you for the 

 first time, that I should meet with you to discourse upon 

 scientific agriculture, in a city which recalls the vast ferti- 

 lity of the plains and slopes of Sicily — may the modern 

 name like the ancient, descend to after times, associated 

 with ideas of rich cultivation and prolific fields of corn ! 



It is not without anxiety, as you will suppose, that I 

 appear for the first time before a large trans-atlantic au- 

 dience. But though you are American born, gentlemen, 

 your faces are familiar to me. They tell me you have 

 Scotch and English hearts, and I believe I may throw 

 myself confidently on your kind indulgence. 



I cannot presume to address you on the general impor- 

 tance of agriculture ; its fundamental connection with the 

 welfare and power of every state ; the estimation in which 

 it has been held in all ages and among every cultivated 

 people ; the natural proneness of man to till the soil ; the 

 pleasure with which the most talented men, and the highest 

 in station, have always looked forward to the time when 

 leaving business and profession and the cares of of&ce to 

 younger men, the small farm should alone employ their 

 quiet leisure ; nor upon the greater attention and respect 

 which this art and its cultivators now every where demand, 

 and are every where receiving. These topics are familiar 

 to you, and you are too rich in native talent to require a 

 stranger to address you on generalities like these. 



Nor does my very recent arrival in the United States, en- 

 title me as yet to speak from my own observation upon the 



