72 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
all the mighty rivers which irrigate the continent of Europe have 
their sources. 
The Rocky Mountains in the same way on this continent give 
rise to the Missouri and Mississippi, and the Alleghany range to the 
Alleghany, Monongahela and Ohio, which make their vast and 
broad valleys the richest country in the world; and so of the Cordil¬ 
leras of South America, which give rise to the largest river in the 
world, the mighty Amazon, and so of the Caucasian mountains, 
from which flowed the Oriental Euphrates and kindred rivers, 
which are supposed to have inclosed and watered the fabled garden 
of Eden. There is nothing in the vegetable kingdom more majestic 
and beautiful than a grand old .forest tree, that stands firmly 
balanced and deep-rooted in the ground, and sends up its mighty 
trunk towards the sky and tosses its gigantic limbs in every gale, or 
crowned with its green dome of leaves, it stands motionless in the 
quiet air, or rustles in the gentle breeze, “in storm a shelter and 
in heat a shade.” Did you ever think how many natural agencies 
have been employed in its production, and how various the material 
of its construction? 
Decomposed animal and vegetable matter, silicious sand, clay, 
carbonate of lime, with more or less oxide of iron, magnesia, and 
various other salts, compose what we call loam, the soil primitive 
of vegetable life, and formed as I have mentioned. The earthly or 
mineral ingredients are the inorganic constituents, and the gases of 
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, the organic constituents of 
all plant life. On decomposition, the ashes indi<-ute the proportion 
of the mineral salts, while the gases return again to the air. 
Thus, in the production of the tree, earth, air, the sunlight and 
water, contribute their several proportions of ingredients, and when 
mingled and combined by the ever active forces, this perfect and 
beautiful new organism, or new creation, comes into being, answers 
its predestined uses, and then goes back into its original elements 
again, to be reproduced in successive birth, growth and decay, for¬ 
ever, without one particle lost or annihilated, in obedience to the 
general order and harmony of the universe. Now, it may be asked 
with some propriety, what have all these various natural causes, 
combinations, relations and dependencies in the material world, to 
do with the published theme of this address, “ The Relations of 
Business,” which exclusively concerns that department in civilized 
