156 TbAXS ACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



farms wliicli lie all along your valleys, and let the prosperous formers, 

 old and young, remove his doubts as they may. Does any one ques- 

 tion the useful effects of agricultural societies ? Let the honorable 

 record of the New York State Society, its careful investigations into 

 every branch of cultivation, and its examinations into and encour- 

 agement of the best farm machinery, furnish the reply. Does any 

 one disbelieve in agricultural schools ? Let him wait until the array of 

 talent and learning called around Cornell University can solve the 

 problem. Does any one still doubt whether intelligence, skill, taste 

 and capital can be profitably employed on the farm ? Let him study 

 the example so nobly set by the prosperous merchants of New York, 

 who have retired from the excitements of the counting room and the 

 exchange, not simply to embellish a landscape by wasteful outlay, but 

 to conduct a large and profitable practical agricultui-e. In their 

 endeavors to improve the cattle of this State they have produced the 

 finest breeds in the land, and they have also demonstrated the profit- 

 able nature of such enterprise. They have not only possessed them- 

 selves of extensive tracts of land, but they have devoted their acres to 

 remunerative cultivation. They are a living rebuke to that superfi- 

 cial and trifling view of agriculture which consigns every tasteful and 

 educated farmer to extravagance or poverty, and sets forth the failures 

 of the ignorant as tlie hard fortune to which every man is destined 

 who would apply intelligence and capital to agriculture. Their prac- 

 tical farming is an example which all might well follow. But not 

 this alone. They have given to the rural life of the State of New 

 York a character not surpassed in this or in any other country. What- 

 ever merit may be accorded to others, it will be remembered of them 

 that they devoted themselves to the development of your best resour- 

 ces, and to the perpetuation of those characteristics wdiich have been 

 the pride and glory of every great people. They have taught us to 

 love tlie land as our fathers loved it, our wise men and counselors of 

 old ; to love it as the people of ancient days loved it, whose great men 

 enjoyed their favorite retreats, and listened many a returning spi-ing 

 to the nightingales that tenanted the dark ivy and greeted the Nar- 

 • cissus, ancient coronal of mighty goddesses, as it burst in beauty 

 under the dews of heaven. They have taught us what a rural life 

 may be, and what that progressive farming is Avhieh is within tlio 

 reach of every intelligent, M'ell educated and industrious American 

 citizen. 



