PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 135 



of the northern ports of the Chinese empire thirteen years ago, the French, 

 who are ever foremost in obtaining from foreign climes such products as 

 may be grown successfully in their own country, obtained a full knowledge 

 of the tea district, and found the two species to be shrubs, not of the tropics, 

 but of hardy growth in the. temperate zone. They also obtained the Sorghus 

 Saccharatus or northern sugar cane, a distinct genus from the tropical cane 

 and the dioscorea batatas or northern yam, now one of the most esteemed 

 esculents sold in every market of France and Italy, and various other esti- 

 mable vegetables. They also discovered, to their amazement, that China, 

 a country which had been deemed barbaric by the European nations, pos- 

 sessed the most elaborate works on agriculture and horticulture that had 

 ever been written in any country. These were obtained by the French 

 government and translated, and they abound with the most interesting dis- 

 sertations on every branch of the vegetable economy. 



It has been a matter of great surprise to me that the American Institute 

 (to which I promptly made the suggestion), or some other of our national 

 institutions, has not sent a mission to China and Japan to search out and 

 bring home to us every horticultural and agricultural production which 

 have served to enrich and to furnish ample food for those two vastly popu- 

 lous empires. As theiraggregate value for nutriment must be of incalculable 

 importance when we witness that they afford such an abundance of cheap 

 food for teeming millions, whereas, on the other hand, in British India, a 

 region much more southern and quite as extensive, with less than half the 

 population, the inhabitants, by a less judicious selection of vegetable pro- 

 ducts, are frequently visited by intense famine, destroying often a half 

 million of the people in a single year. Another fact, which has caused me 

 still more surprise, as our New York Historical Society had one of its mem- 

 bers in China soon after the opening of the ports, is the gross omission on 

 their part to ol)tain the great and important publications of that literary 

 and scientific empire — an empire which had produced a Confucius five hun- 

 dred years before the Christian era, a man of gigantic intellect, whose 

 moral code has been frequently plagiarized by professed Christians, but has 

 never been surpassed. Independently of the knowledge which might have 

 been thus acquired on every subject calculated to enlarge the area of 

 human intelligence, enriching our agriculture and advancing the arts and 

 sciences most conducive to the happiness and comfort of man, another 

 mighty object could have been accomplished, which is completely identified 

 with the purposes of our historical societies — the re-attainment of that 

 knowledge which, by the destruction of the Alexandrian library, shrouded 

 the early history of our race in Cimmerian darkness and oblivion; the 

 vacuum being only filled by the stupid fictions of Jewish history. Through 

 careful and judicious researches into the far-reaching Chinese histories, 

 which comprise records of countless ages that are yet enveloped in dark- 

 ness to the mind of the profeased enlightened nations of Europe and 

 America, ;>ve could have filled up the vast chasm in the records of our 

 race, the mighty vacuum in the world's history in an eminent degree, which 

 unfortunately has so long left our minds to ponder in vain solicitude, 

 dependent solely upon fictitious legends, and upon the pretences and delu- 

 sions of priestcraft and fanaticism. 



