142 TjiANS ACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN iNlTlTirFK. 



AMERICAN AGBICULTUKE. 



ITS PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



By" Dr. Georgb B. Lokinq op Salem, Mass., at tub Exhibition. 



DELIVERED ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER J, 18C9. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen. — American agriculture is jet in its 

 infancy. Covering as it does a large section of the earth's surface, 

 devoted to every variety of soil, influenced by a great diversity of 

 climate, obedient to many diflFerent markets, it has hardly. yet been 

 so systematized as to present on many acres the most economical and 

 profitable husbandry to which those acres are adapted. A compara- 

 tively new civilization, an abundance of new lands, the attractions 

 of other branches of business are undoubtedly the causes of this tardy 

 development. And we now find ourselves, with a very respectable 

 agricultural record behind us, suddenly confronted by the imperative 

 necessity for an accurate, methodized, well-organized system of hus- 

 bandry, in which our expensive labor and capital may be profitably 

 employed, and in which all the modern obstacles, an impoverished 

 soil, clouds of destructive insects, the diseases of vegetable life, all 

 unknown to our ancestors, may be overcome. We have had our 

 share of success, it is true. x\nd the rude husbandry, with which 

 our former generations were familiar, not only produced extraordi- 

 nary crops, but when commerce was small and manufactures were 

 unknown, it constituted the chief wealth of our nation, and gave it all 

 the financial success which crowned the efforts of the early admini- 

 strations. From the beginning until now, however, our agriculture 

 has been conducted in a manner unknown to almost every other 

 people ; and the enterprise which is applied here is not applied else- 

 where. I do not mean to say that equally good and even better 

 agriculture has not been found with other nations. The farming 

 of China, of Lombardy, of Holland, of England, would refute such 

 statement at once. Cunsiderinij: the latitudes which it covers, it is 



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