128 
COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
diligence which success follows as a necessity. Much that is 
beautiful, apposite and true, do these lines contain : 
“ Labor is worship!”—the robin is singing ; 
u Labor is worship ! ;; —the wild bee is singing : 
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing 
Speaks to thy soul from out Nature’s great heart. 
Labor is glory !—the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ; 
Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune. 
Labor is health ! Lo ! the husbandman is reaping, 
How through his veins goes the life-current leaping ! 
How his strong arm, in stalwart pride sweeping, 
True as a sunbeam, the swift sickle guides. 
Work—for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
Cherish some flower, be it never so lowly ; • 
Labor !—all labor is noble and holy, 
Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God !' 
We remark, secondly , that the Farmer should be an educated 
man. 
Agriculture is an art full of science. Not a plant grows but 
grows in conformity to established laws, and the soil in which 
its roots are nestled, is so composed that only elaborate chem¬ 
istry can analyze and explain its elements. There is, in fact, 
more science connected with the vegetating process of a single 
plant, than can be explained in half a volume. Every potato 
and garden vegetable, every stalk of grain you cultivate, draws 
from the ground certain chemical constituents, and these con¬ 
stituents being essential to the very existence of the plant, 
must of course first exist in the soil itself. If Nature has not 
placed it there, Art must. 
You know that if you sow wheat on the same ground, year 
after year, both the stalk and the berry of the wheat will be¬ 
come not only poorer, but the whole crop produced will be con¬ 
stantly diminished. And precisely so with all other grains ; 
with barley and oats, with rye and corn. Now, science unrav¬ 
els the mystery of all this, and shows exactly what elements 
have been withdrawn from the soil, the absence of which causes 
this gradual failure. It goes further :—It shows how soils that 
are naturally unproductive, may be fitted for any kind of grain; 
how soils that are worn out, may be redeemed, and rendered 
