No.'2l6.] 4nfS 



But who does not know, that is conversant with husbandry, and 

 has glanced at the statistics of this growing State, the leading branch 

 of national ii\dustry is here very imperfectly developed, and that a 

 moiety of our lands lie in a primeval forest. 



Blessed with a rich and various soil, a genial climate, unrivalled 

 in facilities for natural and artificial communications — opulent in 

 commerce and manufactures — abounding in a thrifty population — 

 decked with great cities and beautiful villages, and the earth teeming 

 with rare and useful productions — embosoming an inexhaustible 

 mine of real wealth, a vigorous and intelligent race of men, unequal- 

 led in the spirit of enterprise and perseverance, combined with a sys- 

 tem of public education, the admiration of the world — nay more, ex- 

 alted by moral and religious institutions — without arrogance or envy, 

 we may well be called the empire State. 



Commanding so many resources, and having so many hidden trea- 

 sures unexplored, we should be recreant to our trust, were we not to 

 call forth untiring efforts to adorn and fertilize our chosen and na- 

 tive country with whatever art and culture can bestow. The existing 

 State of society serves as an additional motive for enlarging the 

 boundaries of knowledge to meet the exigencies ^ f the cultivators 

 of the earth. For this is emphatically the age of progress, and the 

 annals of time can show no period when so many men of reading 

 and reflection have been produced. None teemed with more books, 

 and never before were the great masses so enlightened. To meet 

 these wants, all the departments of science and art demand ready 

 and cultivated talents. And as the mental standard is so much the 

 more elevated, the crisis has come, when the primitive and main 

 branch of industry should take its proper place, and not fall too la- 

 zily in the wake of improvement. 



Besides, there are unerring indications, from every quarter, that 

 the agricultural classes are awake to the importance of the acquisi- 

 tion and dissemination of those principles whose scope is to advance 

 the prosperity and support the reputation of this great order. 



And who that looks into rural affairs does not know that the steps 

 which have been, within the last century, taken towards the advance- 

 ment of this invigorating and manly employment, have munificently re- 

 warded the hand of operation, and augmented the resources of go- 

 vernment 



