THE CULTIVATOR. Oct 
S' 6 
of this country. Witness the rapid advances of the last 
dozen years in the character of our cultivation, the qual¬ 
ity and quantity of our productions from a given breadth 
of land, and the improvements in all the implements by 
which the labor of the farmer is assisted and applied. 
Mark the vast change in the current of educated mind 
of the country, in respect to this pursuit; the awakened 
attention to its high respectability as a profession, to its 
safety from hazards, to its healthfulness to mind and 
body, and to its productiveness. Listen to the calls for 
information, for education, upon agricultural subjects, 
and to the demands that this education shall constitute 
a department in the great and all pervading system of 
our common school education, a subject at this moment 
receiving the especial attention, and being pressed for¬ 
ward by the renewed energies of this society. Behold 
the numbers of professors, honored with the highest tes¬ 
timonials of learning conferred in our country, devoting 
their lives to geological and chemical researches calcu¬ 
lated to evolve the laws of nature connected with agri¬ 
cultural production. Go into our colleges and institu¬ 
tions of learning, and count the young men toiling in¬ 
dustriously for their diplomas, to qualify themselves to 
become practical and successful farmers, already con¬ 
vinced that equally with the clerical, the legal, and the 
medical professions, that of agriculture requires a 
thorough and systematic education, and its successful 
practice the exercise of an active mind devoted to dili¬ 
gent study. 
Apply these bright, and brightening prospects to the 
almost boundless agricultural field of our country, with 
its varied and salubrious climate, its fresh and unbroken 
soils, its cheap lands and fee simple titles, and who can 
hope, if he would, to turn the inclinations of our people 
from this fair field of labor and of pleasure ? Here the 
toil which secures a certain independence is sweetened 
by the constant and constantly varying exhibitions of 
nature in her most lovely forms, and cheered by the most 
benignant manifestations of the wonderful power and 
goodness of Nature’s God. Cultivated by the resolute 
hands and enlightened minds of freemen, owners of the 
soil, properly educated, as farmers, under a wise and 
just administration of a system of liberal public instruc¬ 
tion, should and will be, and aided by the researches of 
geology and chemistry, who can calculate the extent of 
the harvests to be gathered from this vast field of wisely 
directed human industry? 
The present surplus of bread-stuffs of this country, 
could not have been presented in a rpore distinct and 
interesting aspect than during the present year. A 
famine in Europe, as wide-spread as it has been devas¬ 
tating and terrible, has made its demands upon Ameri¬ 
can supplies, not simply to the extent of the ability of 
the suffering to purchase food, but in superadded ap¬ 
peals to American sympathy in favor of the destitute 
and starving. Every call upon our markets has been 
fully met, and the heart of Europe has been filled with 
warm and grateful responses to the benevolence of our 
country, and of our countrymen, and yet the avenues of 
commerce are filled with the productions of American 
agriculture. Surely the consumption of this country is 
not now equal to its agricultural production. 
If such is our surplus in the present limited ex-tent 
and imperfect condition of our agriculture, can We hope 
that an exclusive domestic market is possible, to furnish 
a demand for its mature abundance ? In this view of 
this great and growing interest, can wb see a limit to 
the period, when the United States will present, in the 
commercial markets of the world, large surpluses of all 
the varieties of bread-stuffs, of beef, pork, butter, cheese, 
cotton, tpbacco, and rice, beyond the consumption; of our 
own country ? And who, with the experience of the last 
few years before him, can doubt that the time is now at 
hand, when the two great staples of wool and hemp 
will be added to the list of our exportations ? 
These considerations, and others of a kindred cha¬ 
racter, which time will not permit me to detail, seem to 
me, with unfeigned deference, to prove that the agricul¬ 
ture of the United States, for an indefinite period yet to 
come, must coutinue to yield annual supplies of our 
principal staples, far beyond any possible demand of the 
domestic market, and must therefore remain, as it now 
is and has ever been, an exporting interest. As such, 
it must have a direct concern in the foreign trade and 
commerce of the country, and in all the regulations of 
our own and of foreign governments which affect either, 
equal to its interest in a stable and adequate market. 
If this conclusion be sound, then our farmers must sur¬ 
render the idea of a domestic market to furnish the de¬ 
mand, and measure the value of their productions, and 
must prepare themselves to meet the competition of the 
commercial world in the markets of the commercial 
world, in the sale of the fruits of their labor. The 
marts of commerce must be their market, and the de¬ 
mand and supply which meet in those marts must govern 
their prices. The demand for home consumption, as an 
element in that market, must directly and deeply inter¬ 
est them, and should be carefully cultivated and encour¬ 
aged, while all the other elements acting with it, and 
constituting together the demand of the market, should 
be studied with equal care, and, so far as maybe in their 
power, and consistent with other and paramount duties, 
should be cherished with equal care. 
Does any one believe, that for generations yet to 
come, the agricultural operations of the United States 
are to be circumscribed within narrower comparative 
limits than the present ; or that the agricultural pro¬ 
ductions of' the country are to bear a less ratio to our 
population and consumption than they now do ? I can¬ 
not suppose that any citizen, who has given his atten¬ 
tion to.the considerations which have been suggested, 
finds himself able to adopt either of these opinions. On 
the contrary, I think a fair examination must satisfy 
every mind that our agricultural surplus, for an indefi¬ 
nite future period, must increase much more rapidly 
than our population and the demand for domestic con¬ 
sumption. This I believe would be true without the 
efforts of associations, such as this, to improve our ag¬ 
riculture. The condition of the country, and the incli¬ 
nation and preference of our population for agricultural 
pursuits, would render this result unavoidable ; and it 
this be so, when the impetus given to agricultural pro¬ 
duction by the improvements of the day ; the individual 
and associated efforts constantly making to push for¬ 
ward these improvements with an .accelerated move¬ 
ment ; the mass of educated mind turned to scientific 
researches in aid of agricultural labor ; the dawning 
of a systematic and universal agricultural education ; 
and the immense bodies of cheap, and fresh, and fertile 
lands, which invite the application of an improved agri¬ 
culture, are added to the account, who can measure the 
extent or duration of our agricultural surplus, or doubt 
the soundness of the conclusion, that the export trade 
must exercise a great influence upon the market for the 
agricultural productions of the country for a long series 
of years to come ? 
Such is the conclusion to which my mind is forced, 
from an examination of this subject, in its domestic as¬ 
pect simply ; but there is another now presented of vast 
magnitude and engrossing interest, and demanding alike 
from the citizen and the statesman of this republic, the 
most careful consideration. All will at once understand 
me as referring to the changes and promises of change 
in the policy of the principal commercial nations of the 
world, touching their trade in the productions of agri¬ 
culture. By a single step, which was nothing less than 
commercial revolution, Great Britain practically made 
the change as to her. trade ; and subsequent events have 
c’othed with the appearance of almost super-human 
sagacity, the wisdom which thus~prepared that country 
to’meet the visitation of famine, which has so soon fol¬ 
lowed, without the additional evil of trampling down 
the systems of law to minister to the all-controlling ne¬ 
cessities of hunger. Changes similar in character, and 
measurably equal in extent, though in many cases 
temporary’ in duration, have been adopted by several 
other European governments,under circumstances which 
render it very doubtful how soon, if ever, a return will 
be made to the former policy of a close trade in the 
necessaries of human jlife. 
New markets of vast extent and incalculable value, 
have thus been opened for our agricultural surplus, the 
