500 [Assembly 



physical life she sustains, and her moral grandeur shall be unani- 

 mously attested by the sages and bards of the past and present. The 

 best eulogist on agriculture is herself. There she roams in broad 

 valleys, and on sunny mountain sides; by rejoicing rivers and glad 

 oceans: there she towers with her luxuriant wreath, amid her blood- 

 less empire; — let her speak for herself, for God has given her a 

 mighty and eloquent voice. Eden heard it — the earth hears it. 



To our own free countrymen has been entrusted the immense 

 American domain, by a beneficent Providence. God made earth, 

 but man must make it productive. To idleness and ignorance that 

 earth presents slow-moving or inarticulate lips; but to Indu^itry and 

 Science it leaps up with smiles and with voices in the sunny field, 

 and the flowery garden, and the golden orchard, and the harvests, 

 whispering of plenty and content. Man dare not fold his arms 

 while his God goes forth in the pomp of Heaven and awfulness of 

 Eternity, to sow the continents of space with the germs of suns, 

 planets and systems. Idleness is practical blasphemy; labor is sub- 

 lime worship. Its ritual is composed in a language that all can 

 comprehend; its psalms are understood by all, as thty swell up from 

 island and continent to the Lord of Hosts. 



Idleness forms no part of the American farmer's character. Our 

 immense exports prove this. Nor is he satisfied to sit down in the 

 valley of the shadow of ignorance. Look at the common school sys- 

 tem, at the State Fairs, at the American Institute. But has the 

 American agriculturist yet reached the ultimate ot his intellectual 

 destiny? and, as a consequent, has science planted her last monu- 

 ment on the soil? We are, in fact, but in the dawn of the scientific 

 agricultural day. For if so much has been accomplished by a few, 

 in the last fifteen or twenty years, what may we not expect in the 

 next half century, if those few shall be followed by thousands who 

 bring cultivated minds to bear on the proper treatment of soils, and 

 other 7na.'me/ connected with agriculture! The question with us is, 

 shall the numbers of those who cultivate science with a view to 

 husbandry increase? Only let our industrious farmers be convinced 

 that this science is absolutely necessary, in a physical point of view, 

 and that it ennobles their calling, and we will have an answer unan- 

 imously in the affirmative. No subtle ratiocination, no splendid elo- 

 quence are necessary to lead their minds to the necessary conviction. 

 Give them facts; show them the magnificent results of chemistry, in 

 its application to their business; array before them the intimate con- 

 nection of mechanics with the farm, and the friend of progress need 



