sent,
valueless; and we cannot attach much importance to soil that is twenty
feet below the surface. Neither cultivation nor vegetation can go beyond
a certain depth; and wherever vegetable life exists, its elements are
required and appropriated. Great depth of soil is desirable; but, with
our present knowledge and means of culture, it furnishes no security
against ultimate exhaustion.

The fact that all soils are exhaustible establishes the necessity for
agricultural education, by whose aid the processes of impoverishment may
be limited in number and diminished in force; and the realization of
this fact by the public generally is the only justification necessary
for those who advocate the immediate application of means to the
proposed end.

And, gentlemen, if you will allow a festive day to be marred by a single
word of criticism, I feel constrained to say, that a great obstacle to
the increased usefulness, further elevation, and higher respectability,
of agriculture, is in the body of farmers themselves. And I assume this
to be so upon the supposition that agriculture is not a cherished
pursuit in many farmers' homes; that the head of the family often
regards his life of labor upon the land as a necessity from which he
would willingly escape; that he esteems other pursuits as at once less
laborious, more profitable, and more honorable, than his own; that
children, both sons and daughters, under the influence of parents, both
father and mother, receive an education at home, which neither school,
college, nor newspaper, can counteract, that leads them to abandon the
land for the store, the shop, the warehouse, the professions, or the
sea.

The reasonable hope of establishing a successful system of agricultural
education is not great where such notions prevail.

Agriculture is not to attain to true practical dignity by the borrowed
lustre that eminent names, ancient and modern, may have lent to it, any
more than the earth itself is warmed and made fruitful by the aurora
borealis of an autumn night. Our system of public instruction, from the
primary school to the college, rests mainly upon the public belief in
its importance, its possibility, and its necessity. It is easy on a
professional holiday to believe in the respectability of agriculture;
but is it a living sentiment, controlling your conduct, and inspiring
you with courage and faith in your daily labor? Does it lead you to
contemplate with satisfaction the pr