the sum of $3) for his lectures on Geology delivered before this so

ciety.

On motion, Voted to adjourn to the first Tuesday in June, 1852.

ADDRESS

Delivered by HON. LUTHER SEVERANCE.

Doubtless I ought to apologise for my temerity in consenting to deliver the annual address, for this year, before the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society. Almost any one else, of your members, may be presumed to have more knowledge of agriculture, generally, and much more of that which is applicable to these islands. What I may say, therefore, you will consider as evidence of my desire to promote the great object you have in view, rather than as a valuable contribution to that end.

I have derived much information from the volume published last year, by the society. It is seldom, I think, that any similar institution has, any where, been commenced with more flattering auspices, or produced in the outset so many judicious and able essays. I trust those gentlemen who contributed them, however, will not think their duty has all been performed, but will continue to give the society, annually if not oftener, the result of their observations, experiments, and reflections.

Fortunately the most enlightened nations have at last so far advanced in civilization that they have begun to appreciate the dignity and importance of agriculture, and to perceive that no branch of science affords a wider field for human research, or one in which patient and scientific investigation may be rewarded with greater benefits to mankind.

From time immemorial the best energies of the race have been worse

than wasted in wars. The road to Fame has lain through sacked and ruined cities, and harvests trampled under foot by contending armies. The poets and historians of antiquity tell us of the heroes who figured in the work of human slaughter, and the orators whose eloquence aroused the multitude to arms; but they tell us little or nothing of the men who made improvements in tillage, or of inventors in the mechanic arts. They tell us of Isthmian and Olympic games, and Amphyctionic councils, but they tell us little of inventors and nothing of agricultural societies. The most famous of the former, (Archimedes), attracted attention chiefly by his machinery used in the defense of the city of Syracuse, besieged by the Romans. If he invented any labor-saving machinery in tillage, the historians of his time have not deigned to mention it.

Agriculture and the mechanic arts were abandoned to slaves and menials, throughout the long career of Greek and Roman greatness, as they were generally in countries more barbarous, or less enlightened. And this state of things continued throughout Europe during the middle ages; and indeed up to this time, the peasantry of some of the countries of Europe are still in complete vassalage, and in others they are practically so to a great extent. Hence there could be no other than a very imperfect cultivation of the soil. Under the feudal system the peasant, who did not own the land he cultivated, would of course, do little to enrich and embellish it, if he had the requisite taste; and the owner who was generally a "Baron," or "Military Chieftain," could not spare the money from his coffers to fertilize and adorn fields which might be devastated by his enemy, nor lay up stores of grain which might be carried off by victorious marauders. Hence between the results of bad tillage, and the desolations of war, Famine appeared frequently, and Pestilence followed in her ghastly train, to sweep off those whom the sword had spared. Population increased slowly, and sometimes rapidly decreased in places afflicted with more than usual severity. The very slow aggregate increase in all Europe for a thousand years is in striking contrast with the increase in western Europe, and especially in the United States, within the last half century, though this period has not been free from wars. In the last sixty years, from 1790 to 1850, the U. S. increased from less than four millions to twenty three millions. There is nothing like this in Europe, and never has

been; indeed a part of this American increase is by emigration from Europe; and yet the very countries from which there has been the greatest emigration, have increased their population, in the last half century, out of all proportion with previous times. The population of Great Britain and Ireland was in

Thus it will be seen that notwithstanding the great emigration from England, Scotland and Ireland, to America, Australia, and elsewhere during the last half century, (much greater than ever before,) the increase has been as great in the last half century as in a whole century before, and greater no doubt than in any previous century, though we have not the statistics for an exact comparison.

Increase of population is not an exact indication of comfortable living, but it is better than any other for the statistics. Such increase may be retarded by luxurious excess, and licentious indulgence, as well as by scanty and bad fare, and poor lodgings; but it is in most countries the rich few, who are the sufferers by excess, while it is the impoverished many who suffer by famine. We hear of great sufferings, severe labor, and scanty pay in British collieries, mines and manufactories, and even in agricultural districts, and of miserable poverty and destitution in Ireland; yet the great increase in the last half century shows that there must be better cultivation and more domestic comfort than in previous times. In Walsh's journey from Constantinople to England, in 1820 by way of the Danube, he says it was not until he reached a town in Transylvania, that he found any potatoes. He found the peasantry of Moldavia, Wallachia and Croatia clothed in sheepskins in summer, and living in miserable hovels, which scarcely sheltered them from the weather. They were supplied with few vegetables of any kind but living upon coarse black bread, and the milk of their flocks and herds. Their predecessors, the Dacian hordes, who over-ran Rome, under Attilla, probably lived no better, if not much worse, a thousand years ago, and their agriculture of course

corresponded with their condition. If they had anything like a plough, it was doubtless a very clumsy contrivance, and all their agricultural tools were of similar utility. There has been a striking improvement in agricultural tools in our own times, though less than in spinning and weaving. Could old Cincinnatus rise from his grave and see one of the most approved ploughs, of the present day, he might be tempted to use it all the time, and would perhaps, hardly be satisfied with the limited extent of his farm of four acres. It would be interesting to know what sort of a plough it was, to which the prophet Elisha had hitched his twelve yoke of oxen, when he was called from his laborious vocation, to receive the mantle of Elijah. Either the cattle must have been very small, or the plough a poor one. It could hardly have been more cumbrous, or inefficient than that which is used in the same country at the present day, so little progress has been made in any of the arts, and especially in tillage, in that part of the world.

Among the inventions of modern times is one which has shortened human life, and caused much misery. It is the art of distilling alcohol; but this has been far more than balanced by a better knowledge of medicine and surgery; better houses to live in; better clothing ; a greater variety, and greater abundance of food, animal and vegetable particularly of the latter; for the last century has brought into use a great number of vegetables, not before supposed to be edible, as well as great improvements in modes of cookery, all conducing to human health and comfort. In London, according to Macaulay, the mortality in 1685, was one in twenty-three; now it is one in forty. This results from greater cleanliness, better lodgings, better food, and a greater variety of it, otherwise the great increase of the city would only increase the mortality. The multiplication of varieties of vegetable food, not only conduces to health, but it is a security against famine; for when one kind of crop fails, another may be abundant. A local failure, too, may be supplied from a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles, by means of ships, steam-boats, and rail-road cars.

Scarcely any plant is found growing in perfection in its natural state. The fair large apple of our temperate climates, came from the miserable, sour, little crab-apple. The cereal grains were doubtless very inferior, when they struggled with other grasses and useless weeds for existence, or were overshadowed by tangled forests. There may still

be some, as well as edible roots and fruits, which have not yet been discovered in any part of the world, but which might be improved and made of great value. America gave to the eastern hemisphere, maize, tobacco, the potatoe, the pine-apple, the turkey, and more lately the alpaca, together with innumerable flowering plants as well as other vegetables and animals of less economical importance, and has received in return, wheat, rye, oats, barley, turnips, beets, carrots, cotton, hemp, sugar-cane, coffee, the apple, pear, peach, and a great variety of other fruits, roots and herbs; the horse, the ox, the goat, the sheep, the ass, the swine, the honey bee, and last but not least, the white race of mankind, whose busy improving hand is seen on many parts of the western continent, and even in these remote islands. It is the laudable object of your society to make the work of that hand more effectual in developing the resources of these islands, by improving not only all the native plants, but all such as can profitably be made to thrive here from other parts of the earth. Of these plants and animals from every part of the globe, we may select those most useful to us, and we ought to discover every useful native plant in these islands, and give it to the world in exchange.

The British and American governments, aware of the importance of many new products to the agricultural interests of their countries, have given standing orders to their consuls throughout the world, to send home all the plants and seeds, that may, in the most distant degree, promise to benefit the landed interests; and similar orders have I believe been issued by other christian powers. Botanic gardens have been established either by government or by individual associations in nearly every country in Europe and in the United States. My own State, the most northerly in the American Union, has recently established a state agricultural school, and purchased a farm upon which the students are to operate. A part of their work will be to endeavor to acclimate, in the long, cold winters and short summers of Maine, plants and fruits from the lower temperate climates, and even from the tropics. This work of acclimation has already been successful with many plants. Experiments of this kind are constantly going on in botanical gardens and nurseries, throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. So successful have been these labors that plantations now exist in the vicinity of London, as well as Paris, whence are dissemi