14 [Assembly 
ed therewith, and the wide field of honor and usefulness which is now 
open for improvement on those subjects. 
For many years past the current of business and of opinion, has been 
toward our large cities. Commercial pursuits and the inordinate profits 
of trade in all its ramifications, have been draining the country of the 
choicest of her youth, and of her best educated and most enterprising 
men. The slow profits of agriculture and the tameness of a country 
life, have not suited the excited temperament of the times. But a great 
change is now taking place in public opinion, resulting from a reaction 
in all the departments of trade. The prodigals in business, care worn 
and oppressed, shorn of their strength and subdued in their spirit, are be- 
ginning to understand that it is of more importance, so far as the great 
ends of human life are concerned, to secure a quiet and peaceful com- 
petency, with freedom from undue care and anxiety, than to hazard 
their peace of mind, their pecuniary prosperity and the welfare of their 
families, upon the uncertain ocean of commercial transactions. Hence 
the retired and peaceful occupations of the farm are beginning more 
than ever to elicit songs of praise from all men. Hence your commit- 
tee believe there is at the present time a greater readmess than usual 
in the public mind to discern the moral and pecuniary advantages of 
an agricultural life, and to estimate more properly those studies which 
are calculated to enhance its profits and pleasures, and ekvate its intel- 
lectual rank among the various occupations of man. Your committee 
hope and believe that the Geological Survey of the State, from the 
amount of information which it will disseminate on subjects about which 
very little hitherto has been known, will lay the foundation for a broad 
system of agricultural education, which they believe to be very much 
needed, and which they think the pubUc mind is fully prepared to esti- 
mate and cherish. The public munificence will be well directed in 
continuing to an honorable completion this undertaking, if it shall con- 
tribute in any degree to awaken a spirit of inquiry among the cultiva- 
tors of the soil, after knowledge in those departments of science which 
are intimately connected with the great art of agriculture, upon the suc- 
cessful promotion of which is based the best interests of our country. 
This survey presents itself to your committee in a most interesting 
point of view, when examined in the light of political economy. If the 
legislation of our country is well directed, when it aims at advancing 
the national wealth, by protecting and encouraging^any branch of indus- 
try, or promoting faciUties for rapid and cheap intercommunication, 
