298 [Assembly 



but there is no comparison berween the condition of England and 

 ours, in reference to moisture. Still, I should rejoice if our farmers 

 would take the trouble to raise the masses of mud and muck from 

 their ponds and swamps to their hill tops, which would then be fer- 

 tilized and blossom like the rose. Great Biitain is saturated with 

 moisture. Plants and trees cannot penetrate so deeply into the soil 

 as with us, for the heat of the sun cannot penetrate so deeply as with 

 us. An orchard planted in England in the depth we plant ours 

 would die in two years,in all probability. The ditTerence of our climate 

 is due to the great prevalence of the westerly winds which come to 

 us over our great continent dry, w'hile the winds of the Atlantic con- 

 vey abundant wet to Britain, and the shores of Europe, and that too 

 is increased by the melting of the floating mass of ice annually com- 

 ing down from the northern seas, I do not wish to make a sweeping 

 censure on English agricultural books, but the applicability of much of 

 their instruction is more than doubtful, and by following their les- 

 sons great injury is produced to the farmers, except where great dis- 

 crimination and sound judgment are exercised in the application of 

 some of their rules, and, indeed, without careful discrimination, their 

 teaching is worse than none. As to their general rules for breeding 

 and care of stock, we know them to be excellent and apt to our cir- 

 cumstances, and obedience to them is a way to wealth. The theory 

 of the upward action of manures is as little applicable probably to 

 England as some of their rules are to us, and that difference is due 

 to the great power of our summer heat when compared with the cold 

 temperature of an English summer. And on many great points in 

 agricultural matters, men of talents may differ, but there is no differ- 

 ence in opinion that agricultural science requires ripening. For 

 some twenty years or more past, Europe has had agricultural colleges, 

 schools, experimental farms, as well as numerous writings, by means 

 of which a great revolution has been effected in favor of agriculture, 

 so marked by the character and amount per acre, that the cause is 

 beyond all possible question. The increase is owing alone to increas- 

 ing knowledge. The intellectual fire has been infused, and, as in 

 other arts and sciences, it burns brightly. May we not have one ag- 

 ricultural college whose light shall be diffused throughout our coun- 

 try? Let us begin and let the science of agriculture be engrafted 

 also upon every school in the land. Let it be what it ought to be, 

 capable of attracting: to its studies and its practice the sons of our 

 most talented and wealthy citizens. Why not? are not other pro- 

 fessions over done? Some of the rich will find where all wealth 

 comes from — the mines of agriculture — the foundations of all pros- 

 perity in every other pursuit of man 



