AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 535 



dust, &C.J &C.5 &c., in intimate connection, so that the little wet 

 dog nosed rootlet, the spongiole, (little wet sponge), can find readily 

 what it seelis for, its food, and so flourishes early, as the young do 

 on the wonderful Pabulum mother's milk. 



As soon as this infant plant has then drawn its growth from 

 its mother's milk, it then expands to the sun, the air, the breeze, 

 the dew, the rain, the electricity. It breathes ! It is warmed by 

 the solar ray ; it is colored by it. It drinks dew and rain. Its 

 pointed leaves play with the electricity in thunder storms. It 

 sleeps under the faint cool light of the moon. It lives its proper 

 and perfect life. 



This education of the land and the plant go on rapidly 

 multiplying, and a good farmer who began on a bit of sand his 

 little garden, can see at his own perfect manhood, a farm of the 

 highest value grow out of it. 



On the contrary, plant grain and tobacco on millions of acres 

 of rich land in the finest climates and latitudes, take all off 

 annually, put nothing on, and you may look on a hundred acre 

 field which bears not a wheelbarrow load of crop or even of 

 weeds. Such devastating farming was seen in our noble land ! 

 John Taylor, of Carolina, and his worthy knights of the soil, 

 killed many of the devastators. They grew thirty bushels of 

 wheat an acre where thirty melancholy mullen stalks could 

 hardly live and grow eighteen inches high. 



We call our plan by the common name, economy, whose true 

 meaning is, the law of the house. That law commands the sav- 

 ing and application of all that belongs to the house, to its own 

 support. It commands the soap suds of every Monday's washing 

 to be carefully saved for manure, &c. 



The secretary read his translation of a letter from Mr. Hum- 

 boldt, directed to our late president, Tallmadge, of whose decease 

 the Baron was not aware. 



Berlin^ February 25, 1858. 



Mr. President — Through the kindness of His Excellency, Mr. 

 Wright, the respectable Minister of the United States, at Eerlin, 

 I have received the interesting volumes of the annual Transac- 

 tions of the American Institute, of the city of New- York. And 



