we have, and the discovery of some means for the effectual destruction of the various insects and vermin which at certain seasons of the year sweep over portions of the group like the locusts of Egypt, destroying every green thing.

Having briefly stated the necessity for, and some of the principal objects of, the proposed society, I shall now proceed to address you upon the dignity and importance of agriculture, and the necessity for its encouragement as a means of national prosperity and independence.

Of all the occupations of man, agriculture stands first in importance and second to none in dignity. I would not follow the error so common with public speakers, of attaching undue importance to the subject under consideration, but I do feel, that in the assertion I have just made, I am upheld by the universal voice of history, of the ablest writers on political economy, and the observation of every day life. Agriculture is the original source of all wealth and prosperity. It supplies our food and raiment. It gives us life, health and strength. Its productions furnish the materials for the labors of the manufacturer, and in turn freight the bark of commerce. In a word, it is the basis of all other arts-the great substratum upon which rests every other interest, individual and national. It is the most ancient and most sacred of all employments. We read in the Holy Scriptures, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden: and there he put the man whom he had formed." "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. After the fall of Adam, we read, "The Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, "to till the ground from whence he was taken." It is clear then, from the highest of all authority, the Bible itself, that the great Creator made man a farmer; and that all other avocations are secondary in rank to that of agriculture. Being the first labor commanded of Heaven it is the most dignified, honorable and important. Its seniority and divine origin entitle it not only to our reverence and respect, but to our highest consideration among the arts, of which it is the common parent.

From the day of Adam to the present time the culture of the soil has held its high position in every civilized country. Among the Israelites it stood first in rank, with the Persians it was rewarded with royal favor, and among the Chinese, the most populous, one of the most ancient and in many respects the most civilized of the nations of the

globe, it has ever commanded alike the adoration of the "Sole Guardian of the Earth," and his four hundred millions of subjects. The annual ceremonial by which the emperor of China manifests his respect for agriculture, is probably familiar to you all. Surrounded by his principal officers, he prostrates himself upon the earth, and invokes the blessing of the God of Heaven upon the labors of himself and of his people. As the high priest of the Empire, he then sacrifices a bullock, and while the altar is still smoking, he lays aside his imperial robes, puts his hands to the plough, and opens several furrows over the whole field. After the Mandarins have followed his example, presents are distributed to the peasantry, and the festivities close, to be again renewed when the Emperor comes to sow the seed. A noble tribute this to one of the noblest pursuits of man! In no country, perhaps, is agriculture so honored, dignified and nurtured as in China. Certainly in no other is its astonishing power as a sustainer of human life and the support of a nation so strikingly illustrated. Its crowded population, which has little or no other source of subsistence, has pushed it to the highest state of perfection, and necessity, ever fertile in invention, has furnished it with means of inducing and perpetuating the fertility of the earth, which to the most enlightened agriculturists of the present day is a matter of astonishment. Not a rood of ground, that can be made to produce the most unimportant crop is suffered to

run to waste.

The steepest hill-sides and most precipitous mountains are cut into terraces and cultivated to their very tops. The rivers that flow along their bases are taken from their beds-carried to commanding heights, and made to trickle down their barren sides to beautify, errich, and bless the earth. There alone in all the globe the soil is never let to rest. From age to age not an acre of its five millions of square miles is permitted to lie idle, and the same land which for thousands of years has been yielding from two to three crops annually, is by a judicious system of manuring made to retain its pristine vigor.

The revenue of China, which is estimated at upwards of $150,000,000, consists chiefly in productions of the soil; and well may Agriculture be honored, in a land where she takes up its dusty atoms, transmutes them into her powerful alembic, and pours them into its treasury, a stream of moulten gold.

In Egypt, once the very centre of civilization, and even in its ruins the land of wonder to the philosopher and endless research to the

scholar, agriculture was an object of especial devotion. In such estimation was it held by the Egyptians that they ascribed its invention to the Gods,-deified the Nile as the fertilizer of their soil; and worshipped the ox for his services in the field. Though Egypt has ever been for the most part an arid waste covered with burning sands, yet the overflowings of the Nile, united with the industry of her inhabitants, earned for her the reputation of being the granary of the world. Even in her present desolation, her Copts and Arabs supply their Turkish masters with grain.

In Greece, agriculture was never cherished to the same extent that it was among the other great nations of ancient times. This was partly owing to the sterility of her soil, and in part, no doubt, to her prosecuting the labors of the husbandman by means of slaves. Still it was honored by the poetic genius of Hesiod, and by the writings and lectures of Xenophen.

Rome venerated the plow, and her noblest sons followed in its furrows. Her pride, her strength, her wealth and chief glory lay in her agriculture; and from the time of Numa, when to neglect the cultivation of a farm was an offense punishable by the chastisement of the censor, to the decline of the Empire, her senators and magistrates, her most distinguished statesmen and generals, were often found tilling the soil with their own hands. Farmers filled the ranks of her invincible legions, and to this fact it is probably owing, that wherever Rome carried conquest, instead of burning and devastating the vanquished countries, she caused them to smile with the peaceful fruits of the husbandman. The Roman Eagle was almost the sure omen of victory, but upon his wings was borne the promise of human advancement and prosperity. Good roads were made; property protected; the products of the soil increased; towns and cities built; and the conquered provinces were made to teem with a beauty and luxuriance scarcely second to that of Italy herself. Even at the present day there is no country that exhibits such a diversity of culture as Italy, and none, except it be China or Flanders, that exceeds it in fertility. Weak, distracted and despised as Italy now is, she preserves in the character of her agriculture, a faint ray of the glory of that splendid empire of which she was once the centre.

In Carthage, the illustrious rival of Rome, the cultivation of the soi was one of the chief subjects of attention. Agriculture was the prin

cipal source of her revenues; and her great generals thought it not beneath their dignity to make themselves master of all its rules, both by study and by practice. Such was the esteem in which agriculture was held by the ancients. For nearly four thousand years it was the fountain of life and power to the most renowned and civilized nations of olden times.

Through the dark ages agriculture languished. The labors of the husbandman were swept away with the torrent of blood and carnage that followed in the train of the Goth and Vandal, and died amid the desolation of provinces, the groans of slaughtered millions, and the shock of falling empires. There was no incentive for the farmer to sow and plant, for he felt no certainty that the harvest would not be gathered by some new invader. With the revival of letters and the bursting forth of that pure flame of civil and religious liberty which shone with such glory in the Reformation, Agriculture, in common with the other arts, awakened from her long slumber, and again took up her march of joy and gladness to the depressed and starving nations. From this time, the art of improving the soil advanced slowly but surely, yet it can hardly be said to have regained the height it occupied in the days of the Romans until the middle of the eighteenth century.

At the present day it has attained to a high degree of improvement, and is constantly growing in dignity and importance. The numerous societies which have been formed for its promotion in Europe and America have given it an impulse which seems to promise a progress and development in the science hardly conceivable. In Germany, France, and other parts of Continental Europe, schools have been established for its promotion, and it is receiving the attention of chemists and other men of science; but in no country has it reached that distinction which it possesses in England. British Agriculture, is undoubtedly more scientific and instructive, than any other in the world. It is the great interest of that Kingdom, and one which is watched over with a vigilance that never sleeps. So great is it, that until very recently it has been able to shut the door against the admission of foreign bread stuffs, and by means of its corn laws to create a complete monopoly of British grains, even at the expense of dear bread to the great body of the people. The agricultural interests of Great Britain are in the hands of her nobility, the principal landed proprietors of the Kingdom, and the eminence which it has attained, is owing in no small degree to their exertions in the formation of Boards and Societies for

its advancement. Perhaps no part of the United Kingdom has felt the influence of these societies to a greater degree, and exhibited so rapid an improvement in agriculture during the last half century as Scotland. Naturally one of the most sterile and inhospitable of countries in soil and climate, it has become, under the hands of her industrious and educated farmers, one of the most fertile and generous. The change which has been wrought in the face of that country within the last fifty years, is said to be almost miraculous. Whole districts, once more desolate than the mountains of Hawaii, have been made to blossom as the rose. The change in England, according to Macaulay, is hardly less wonderful. Great Britain is estimated to produce annually between 350 and 400 millions of bushels of grain, and her agricul ture is not only of vital interest to the twenty-seven millions of inhabi tants, whom it feeds, but a matter of no small moment to the whole civilized world. Daniel Webster, that distinguished American statesman and farmer, remarked more than ten years ago, that, 66 should there be a frost in England fifteen days later than usual,-should there be an unreasonable drought or ten cold or wet days, instead of ten warm or dry ones, when the harvest should be reaped,—every exchange in Europe and America felt the consequence of it." The truth of that remark has been fearfully demonstrated by the potato rot of Ireland. The decay of a single vegetable has been the starvation of thousands, and has agitated to its remotest extremeties the commerce and business of the four quarters of the globe. A short crop in England produces almost as great a sensation in the United States as in England itself; for the vacuum produced, must be supplied mainly by the surplus products of America. It is well known that within the last few years, owing to the failure of crops in Great Britain, the United States has transported an immense amount of agricultural produce to her shores, feeding the starving with her bounty, and realizing enormous profits from her sales.

In the United States the agricultural interest has always been in the ascendency; and her farm houses have ever been the nurseries of her best and most distinguished citizens, from the days of the immortal farmer of Mount Vernon, down to those of the honored husbandmen of Marshfield and of Ashland-of Lindenwald and of North Bend. Five sixths of her entire population are said to be engaged in the labors of the field, and the products of her soil for the last year have been esti