No. 216,] 561 



last few years of the capacities of our fields and orchards ; but sci- 

 ence, practice, and hard labor are yet able to reveal more; and what 

 we now trample upon as the most noxious of the vegetable kingdom, 

 may with the aid of a little instruction assume the talismanic virtues 

 of a healing balm. 



The American Institute are therefore desirous of trying exj)eri- 

 ments on the capacities of the earth, and they wish the agriculturist, 

 the farmer, and the gardener; the sober, the staid and the reflecting, 

 to offer them their aid, so that when a valuable discovery has been 

 made, we or our successors may know where to find it. 



The sun of our prosperity is now in its zenith; let us labor while 

 it gives us light. The delightful season of the bounteous autumn, 

 now passing away, to be succeeded by the chills of winter, reminds 

 us that the reapers have thrust in the sickle, and that the harvest of 

 the earth has been gathered. The period of the farmer^s leisure ap- 

 proaches, when the long evenings are open for his reading and in- 

 struction; and although we have no assurance that when the " flow- 

 ers again appear on earth, and the time of the singing of birds shall 

 come," we shall again partake of their fragrance and their harmony, 

 it is still well enough to be ready. The sighing of the winds, as 

 they waft the gorgeous foliage from the parent stem, may be offered 

 as the requiem of neglected opportunity. Let us labor then while 

 it is yet day. 



The genius of error is striving to allure us from the pathway of 

 truth, and is threatning to deceive the unwary with her superficial 

 theories, to the sacrfiice of legitimate pursuits. Not content that 

 medicine should remain a science, that proper laws should control 

 society, and that religion should continue a virtue, the quack doctor 

 fattens on the simplicity of his victim, the quack theorist amuses his 

 dupes with juggleries he cannot explain, the fanatic laughs at the 

 folly which gives his absurdities an importance, and whole crops are 

 destroyed by the self-inflated whims of half-fledged farmers. 



Fortunately, however, the balance of common sense preponderates 

 and the fancy isms and ites are watched and wondered at, as the 

 melancholy freaks of human eccentricity. 



Neither of the delusive dreams of Millerism, Mesmerism, Mormon- 

 ism, nor Fourierism, ever afforded any two men an honest living; but 



[Am. Inst,] LL 



