No. 216.] 45 



results of a proper agricultural education would give us 1h usands of 

 such characters; and as the sustainment of the mighty fabric of our 

 most happy government depends principally upon the dissemination of 

 information among this class, which constitute the main reliance for 

 the support and preservation of our lives, liberties, and properties, 

 which we now so fully and luxuriantly enjoy; it behooves our legis- 

 lators to aid with their fostering beneficence sucl? a project, and it 

 will not be easy to calculate the extent of the improvements and 

 benefits which will be made on this important art. The progress 

 heretofore made among our citizens, who seem to have intuitive taste 

 for this occupation, has been chiefly the result of the experience of 

 unscientific men — by those who have it not in their power to avail 

 themselves of the experience and experiments contained in the vari- 

 ous publications which are constantly emanating from the press, nor 

 of that chemical knowledge of the combination of soils and the 

 proper food of such plants as we wish to cultivate, as are elaborated 

 in the works of Sir Humphrey Davy. ]\Iay we not look for as many 

 improvements in the mode of cultivating the earth, and of the utensils 

 used and to be used in the application of our labor, as has been made 

 in the immense improvements in the manufacturing art, by such men 

 as Watts and Arkwright. Who shall say what results such a direc- 

 tion of talents may eventually lead to? " We have not yet discover- 

 ed the art of converting azote, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, lime 

 or clay, into nutritive matter. The vegetable principle universally 

 has the power of effecting this by its diversified organization, with 

 its own compounded substances; and this, so made, becomes our 

 food." It is known, that the electric fluid, that mysterious and uni- 

 versal agent, is intimately connected with the vegetable process: and 

 may we not, with as much certainty as it is now used to transmit 

 intelligence, with lightning speed, thousands of miles in the smallest 

 space of time, predict that it will add fertility to vegetation, and 

 that the means for effecting it will be discovered by the ingenuity of 

 some of our favored citizens. There is no end of such suggestions; 

 our enterprize is acknowledged by all the world. The happiness and 

 general well-being of our people, the rapid development of our re- 

 sources, and the increase of our wealth, have excited the envy of all 

 despotic governments, and our late successes in the Mexican war has 

 caused them to fear and respect us. Let us, then, persevere in our 

 endeavors to excel in this, the most important of all pursuits to which 

 .the labor of man can be applied. 



