should convince any of you with botanic predilections, that sufficient remains to be 

 discovered to encourage you to devotion to that special line of investigation. Besides, 

 the conditions that determine the distribution of plants in different localities presents a 

 wide field for the exercise of thought, and none more practically important than that of 

 the cause of grassed lands existing hi some portions of our country, whilst fern lands 

 predominate in others. 



In chemistry, as in astronomy, I fear little can be hoped for ; although with sufficient 

 time, training, and appliances, I believe there is a wide field here open for the chemist in 

 developing the natural wealth in our midst, hi the way of dyestuffs, medicinal herbs, and 

 other vegetable products. 



In regard to the geology of our country, much, very much remains to be done, 

 notwithstanding the valuable researches of Drs. Hector and Hochstetter, They have but 

 dealt with general outlines, with the larger aggregated facts of geological formation, but 

 in the detads of every different locality, a vast work still remains to be done, a work 

 which I feel sure will amply repay every care bestowed upon it. A series of specimens 

 of the rocks found in every different locality, with a note of their positions in relation to 

 other rocks, and to the contour of the surface, would indeed be a most valuable 

 contribution to science and to our Museum, and would tend in no small degree to throw 

 light on many obscure questions as to the past of our colony, as well as to guide us to the 

 future capabdities of the various portions of it. In the observation, too, of facts in 

 mining, mineralogy, and metallurgy, I would invite the attention of some of you. With 

 such large mining interests as we now possess, and with so large a body of our population 

 engaged in mming pursuits, I think we might reasonably expect contributions on these 

 subjects. The depths of shafts in various localities, the direction of drives, the nature of 

 the strata passed through during these operations, the position in which gold is found, the 

 nature of the veins, leaders, or reefs in which it is found, their direction and inclination, 

 and specimens of the gold-bearing strata of their adjacent casings, would indeed be a 

 contribution to our knowledge, not only of scientific, but of great practical value. The 

 processes, too, adopted for the extraction of the ore, observations on the defects of 

 existing processes, suggestions for improvements, these would be of great value both 

 scientifically and practically. 



In regard to mechanical science and engineering, it may at first be supposed that in 

 the face of the great mechanical knowledge, activity, and ingenuity of the old world, we 

 cannot hope here to aid. But with the example before us of what has been, and is being 

 accomplished in the young country of America, I see no reason to despair of our 

 producing mechanical and engineering adaptations suitable to our own circumstances, 

 which could not emanate from the older countries. And the discovery of a new adapta- 

 tion of a known principle, is almost equally valuable with the discovery of a new principle. 

 There are, I fancy, in this colony very many branches of industry in which the ingenious 

 application of mechanical powers would make that profitable which is now unprofitable. 



I am well aware that no amount of advice can create invention — necessity alone is 

 its mother — but when we look to the vast number of useful inventions, to which, in 

 America, that mother has given birth, and when we look to the necessity that hi our 

 colony exists for labour-saving machines, I would fain indulge the hope that even the 

 stimulus of our Society may have some effect in finding a paternal ancestor for some 

 useful mechanical inventions. To one member of our Society, at least, belongs the honour 

 of having led the way in this department, in one prosperous and progressive branch of 

 industry — I may almost now say of national industry ; I mean in respect of machinery 

 for the preparation for market of our Phormium tenax. Are there not other branches of 

 industry which would be equally benefitted by the application of a little mechanical skill 

 and invention ? In mining especially — in agricultural operations more especially, I 

 venture to say there is a wide field open for the application of mechanical and engineering 

 science. Aud this leads me to one of the most important branches of science for a colony 

 like our own. I mean agricultural science. 



The most ancient of all operations, agriculture is one of the youngest of the sciences. 

 In this colony agriculture has been treated too much as it has been in past ages, rather 

 as a sort of operation to be performed by orthodox means with an uncertain result, than 

 as a scientific operation to be conducted on ascertained principles, and producing, when 

 so conducted, a definite result. From haphazard farming we have had even in this 

 province too many melancholy specimens of pecuniary ruin ; until agriculture takes its 

 legitimate place as a science we cannot hope it to be other than a record of manifest 

 failures and of unaccountable successes. It is true that your typical farmer is of the 

 most conservative type, and scouts the notion of science as applied to farming. He points 

 to this, that, and the other prosperous farmer, who, without an atom of scientific know- 

 ledge has been successful, and to this, that, and the other professedly scientific farmer, 

 who has gone to the dogs. But it is not so — the high farmer is not necessarily the 

 scientific farmer. The prosperous farmer, without scientific knowledge, is one who has 

 by intuitive perception seized and applied practically what science would teach the reason 



