70 
WISCONSIN STATE AGBICULTUMAL SOCIETY, 
pened ear of a future age, of more perfect and lusty life. This in¬ 
cipient vegetation decayed, and, by its decomposition, spread over 
the earth the first thin mold containing these ingredients of life 
which bad been gathered and treasured in organic form, for this 
predestined period of animal and human creation, and so on by 
successive growth and decay, a fruitful soil was made on which ani¬ 
mal life could find spontaneous subsistence, and man, by his first oc¬ 
cupation of agriculture, could find his bread “ by the sweat of his 
brow.” In the processes of the development and production of 
vegetation, which is nothing more than a combination of chemical 
elements into organic form, there are relations and dependencies 
strikingly suggestive and emblematic of these relations and depend¬ 
encies essential to the organization of civilized society in its high¬ 
est form. 
In the treasury of nature there is no waste, no loss of a single 
atom, but in an endless circle of progression the material is utilized 
over and over and forever. These chemical ingredients even after 
death, lie slumbering in the bed of decay, to arise into newness of 
life and into more perfect organization, so emblematic of the resur¬ 
rection. 
An essential to perfect vegetation is the element of water, which 
in dew and rain, it may breathe through its lungs of leaves, or copi¬ 
ously imbibe through its branching network of roots. Water holds 
in solution its chemical and mineral food on which it feeds and lives 
and grows, and which it can only receive and assimilate in fluid 
form. 
How beautiful and perfect that process of evaporation, by which, 
under the action of the sun, moisture arises into the upper air and 
spreads its thin and gauzy veil over the blue sky, or gathers into 
the black and threatening storm cloud, and by attraction and mo¬ 
tion its tiny drops are mingled and enlarged, and by gravitation 
fall in strong torrents or in gentle showers. 
The great oceans were once the only source of this evaporation, 
and the coast regions received at long intervals a rain fall, and thus 
afforded but small and limited spaces for feeble and sickly life. 
There were no inland seas or lakes or rivers, from which evapora¬ 
tion could arise into the air and absorb its gases and come dov/n 
in fructifying rain and dew. 
The vast regions lay then a hot, seething, lifeless desert. There 
