AGRICULTURE. 



An Address delivered before the American InstiUite. 



BY HON. NATHAN BURCHARD, VemoD, Oneida Cov N. Y, 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Institute: — 



The destination of man is evinced by his aspirations for domain 

 and habitations more extensive and commodious than the wild range 

 and dark caverns of the tenants prone to instincts. And as far as 

 memory can trace the shadowy lines of evidence, momentous matters 

 ■would have been lost in an endless night, but for the finger of inspi- 

 ration which points out the cradle where innocence first budded; 

 and where man erectly stood, surrounded by law and order, and was 

 invested with a peaceful dominion over vgetable and animal forms. 

 Occupation and cultivation were his proud empire and gracious boon 

 in the garden of felicity. And when doomed to toil amidst noisome 

 weeds, and lacerating thorns, weary and faint, his slumberings were 

 awakened by the joyful tidings that opened in his ear this sweet and 

 consolatory promise, that the moisture that should gather on his man- 

 ly brow, would bring him food amply to sustain his short but event- 

 ful existence. Our earthly career is full of conflict; and excellence 

 is not attainable without masculine vigor and indomitable persever- 

 ance. A nature, unassisted by art, is indeed a rugged nurse, giving 

 out only coarse and undainty subsistence. Her uncultivated regions 

 where civilized man never trod, and to which his peaceful implements 

 have never been applied, afford a melancholy proof that her unre- 

 claimed realms are " a wild where weeds and flowers promiscuous 

 shoot." ft 



Look at the country of our ancestors, before Caesar's legions had 



- penetrated into the sea-walled domain of barbarism and civil broils, 



the indigenous vegetable race grew berries of base quality, and no 



