railway, which, with other agencies, has been a chief means of quickening the agricultural mind, not merely by cheapening transit, and in some instances creating new markets, but chiefly by enabling the tillers of the soil to extend the sphere of their observations, of witnessing and comparing different systems of culture, and of obtaining valuable information of a reliable character from each other's observations and different modes of practice. I can remember the time when large numbers of English farmers seldom went beyond the boundary of their own county. Some even hardly passed the limits of their own or adjoining parish. What a change has been effected since the introduction of the railway! Farmers may now be seen traveling hundreds of miles to an exhibition, or in company as members of a club, paying periodic visits to inspect the practices of distinguishred individuals of their craft in different parts of the country. A little perambulating of this sort has a most salutary effect in enlarging the farmers' circle of observation, enabling him to gain new ideas, to break loose from traditional prejudices, and to improve his practice by adapting it to the new lights which science and enlarged experience throw across his path.

Among the causes that have retarded the progress of husbandry may be mentioned the absence of a healthy and efficient agricultural literature. It is true that a number of treatises on this ancient and indispensable art were written by distinguished men belonging to the two most cultivated nations of antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans, and in such of their works or fragments as have come down to us we find interspersed not a little that is excellent and practical, from which we might profit in the present day. These writings, however, and even those of a much later date, contain, as Lord Bacon said, "no principles;" that is, they are, notwithstanding the many valuable and practical directions which they contain, essentially empirical. Indeed, it could not possibly have been otherwise, as agriculture was incapable of being reduced to anything approaching the condition of a science till chemistry and physiology, at least, assumed a definite form, a result that may be said to be quite recent. Going back to the early part of the present century, when Sir Humphrey Davy delivered his celebrated lectures on agricultural chemistry to the Board of Agriculture in England, and to the report of Baron Liebig, on the same subject, to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, some thirty years ago, we discover the cause of the mighty impulse that has in these days been given to more earnest scientific research, and wider and deeper investigations, so as to put not only [AG.]

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the laboratory, but also the printing press, into a more active and harmonious operation. In all civilized countries science, of late, has more or less been brought to bear on the practice of agriculture with beneficial results, and the reports and transactions of agricultural societies in different parts of the world, together with a legion of periodical journals in this great interest, unmistakably indicate the present healthy state of progress, the future limits of which it is quite impossible to define. I may further observe that America occupies a foremost place in agricultural literature, as the valuable reports and transactions of this and other Societies, with the documents that are annually issued by the Federal and State governments, amply testify. Your numerous weekly and monthly periodicals, embracing such pursuits, works mostly, I believe, of private enterprise, estimated by their price, quality and circulation, stand unquestionably ahead of any other similar publications in the world. And here I shall be only doing a simple act of justice by making a passing reference to the last report published by your Society. The "getting up," as it is technically termed; its numerous and beautifully executed illustrations; the scientific and practical papers on some of the most important and difficult subjects that come within the range of modern research, brought down to the present state of knowledge, would be an honor to any Society, older and wealthier than your own. Instead, then, of croaking and finding fault on account of the slow progress of our art, instances such as these should inspire us with glowing hopes for the future.

It has been remarked that, as a general rule, whatever is most valuable and enduring is of slow and progressive development. The globe we live on, at least its crust, appears to have been subjected to physical changes through untold and even unimagined periods of duration. Its vegetable productions; the trees of our own forests, for instance, some will endure for centuries ere they become finally resolved into the mineral and organic constituents of which they are composed. Our Christian civilization has a most interesting and instructive history to tell, its numerous vicissitudes, sometimes apparently stationary and even retrograding; at others marked by decided if not rapid progress; and yet it has taken nearly nineteen centuries to reach its present imperfect condition. So, again, as regards civil government. What time, talent, statesmanship and philanthropy have been expended in reducing to a practical form the best way of ruling mankind, so as to obtain the legitimate object of all sound legislation, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." In

these matters our knowledge has to be corrected and enlarged by time and experience; and, notwithstanding the progress, particularly of late, that has marked the history of many nations, who has the temerity to affirm of any one of them, that it has reached the ne plus ultra of perfection? So it may be that the slow advance of agriculture during the past centuries is in accordance with a principle of nature, of a much wider application than is generally perceived.

Whatever causes may have contributed to impede the onward march of agriculture, some more difficult to modify or remove than others, I have long felt a strong conviction that the most formidable obstacle to the general advancement of the art in all ages and countries has been, and unfortunately still is, the low estimation in which it is held, not only by communities, but also by the great mass of its followers themselves; by this I mean, the little acquisition of an intellectual character which has been regarded necessary to a farmer. I believe, and rejoice in the conviction, that a new era is commencing, or rather has already commenced in earnestness in several countries of the eastern hemisphere, and that to us here of the west, especially, a high and important trust has been committed, which, if faithfully executed, will be pregnant with untold blessings to all coming generations. To thoughtful minds the truth is beginning everywhere to be more or less distinctly recognized, that it is not every man can, by the old routine of mere muscular toil, be made a prosperous and improving farmer, but that a good general education in the first place, supplemented by special study and training, with the acquisition of sound business habits, are the essential elements of success. The fact is, that farming, intelligently pursued, is quite as much an affair of the mind as of the body. Indeed, muscular force, as is well known in all other matters, spends itself for naught when not directed by mental power; and most assuredly the practice of husbandry is no exception to this great, general law, and he who successfully labors to base the art of culture on the facts and principles of science, dissipates the darkness and uncertainties of empiricism, and becomes, in the highest sense, the improver and benefactor of his race. Let us look at this matter for a few minutes in a familiar manner. Let us ask ourselves the question, What is agriculture? and try to answer it as briefly and accurately as we can. Agriculture, it may be said, is the art of cultivating the soil for raising crops for the sustentation of man and animals. Now, who that reflects on what is involved in this short answer, can come to the conclusion

that any man, provided he has powerful muscles, can make a farmer? The first thing that might strike the attention of a reflecting person, in the above definition, is the little word "soil," a term expressing not a simple, but an extremely complicated substance, comprising a variety of materials, in different chemical and mechanical conditions. In traveling through any considerable area of country, you pass over a diversified surface, composed of different soils, from the disintegration and commingling of the various underlying rocks, differing in some instances very widely from each other in chemical composition, and mechanical and hygrometric properties. To acquire what may be termed only a practical knowledge of soils, a life of observation and farm-experience is required; and if we desire a minute and accurate acquaintance with particulars, on which much of success or loss in practice may depend, we are compelled to invoke the aid of the chemist and the geologist. The soil is a very complex thing, susceptible at the hands of man of great improvement, or, as is unhappily sometimes the case, of great deterioration; and no cultivator, however advanced his practice, or minute and extensive his observation, can obtain the maximum of profit and sustain the fertility of his land, without an acquaintance with those facts and laws, in relation thereto, which science has investigated and can alone explain.

Again: The soil, air, and water contain all the constituents which the farmer by means of cultivation elaborates into crops, and it is from the former alone that they obtain their mineral or inorganic portion. Now mark what is implied by this single word, cultivation. It involves, of course, the use of tools, implements and machines, the efficiency of which mainly depends on their mechanical adaptation to the various kinds of soils, as regards texture, density, and relation to warmth and moisture, and also to the habits and special requirements of different crops. In addressing an American audience, a people so distinguished for fertility of invention, I need only say, that between implements and machines constructed, on the most approved principles of modern mechanics, and successful and profitable farming, there is an intimate and indissoluble connection. Take only that important and primitive symbol of husbandry, the plow, and without going back to Egypt, or the ancient Romans, compare, or rather contrast the implements that were in general use in Europe and on this continent less than fifty years ago, with those of the present time, and you perceive at once how much depends upon the employment of such implements as are in their form and construction in

accordance with the laws and well-ascertained formulas of mechani

cal philosophy.

Further: The farmer cultivates the soil for the exclusive purpose, in the first instance, of raising crops; in other words, such vegetable productions as are best suited to soil, climate and markets. He ascends from the dead mineral earth to the living organized plant. A tiny seed is deposited in the earth, and under the influence of warmth and moisture germinates, assimilating materials from both the air and soil in the progress of growth, and after passing through a wonderful cycle of changes; reaches the condition of a perfect plant, ripens its seed, and thus secures the perpetuity of its species. Here he is brought directly in connection with the higher teachings of chemistry and vegetable physiology.

The farmer has yet a further and higher object: he raises plants for the sustentation of animals. This is the great and ultimate end of all agricultural operations. What a beautiful view is here opened by the ordinary routine of the farmer's daily life, of the intimate connection between what are termed the three great kingdoms of nature! The animal conld not exist without the vegetable, which in its turn depends upon the mineral. Thus he ascends from the dead earth to the living plant, on which is nourished the living, moving and sentient animal! In the breeding, feeding and general management of his stock, the manner in which these operations are conducted may be regarded as an unerring index of the state and progress of agriculture; and much of the success of the practical man will depend on the extent and correctness of his knowledge of the principles of zoology and animal physiology.

Now, will it be maintained that agriculture is so simple a thing that any youth, however feeble his mind and sluggish his mental habits, can readily be made into a farmer, and that to engage in this pursuit, but little special information or training is needed, but simply a large expenditure of muscular force in accordance with a certain time-honored routine? This, unhappily, has been the prevalent feeling of the past, and it is still too much so at present; and I repeat, that it is to this low and fallacious estimate of the nature of agriculture and the qualifications of its pursuers, that much of its complained of slow progress is attributable. We must rouse ourselves so as to take higher and wider views of this great art, which, instead of being the simplest, is one of the most difficult and complex, as it is unquestionably the most valuable, of the various industries of this brief and busy life.