New-York tribune., 1870-10-04
PhICE FOUR CENTS.
THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
EXHIBITION OF ITS INDUSTRIAL ppon,rcrs

here to-day. The weather was remarkably fine and
the display unprecedented. Colorado sends $i5O,OG
worth Of minerals, fruits, and vegetables. Minnesota
contributes blankets, grain bags, and Durham cattle
The States Of Minnesota, Colorado, and Kansas,
with several IN New-Engiand, send agricultural
machinery and implements. AT least 5000 persons
were present Horace Greeley delivered the opening
address as follows:
ADDRESS.
Long after the materials have perished beyond re-
covery we perceive that the true history Of race
has not been written. That which has come down
To us from antiquity embodIes the names Of few
great warriors, many cty-building deSpots, the
founders of three OF four out Of ten thousand re-
lgiOns, with two OF three akably strong minded
and generally ill-behaved women; but, Of the great
benefactors and real leaders Of mankind il tells us
nothing. Minus and Sesostris figure on its pages;
but what they to us and what did they whereby
we are instructed or beneftedi while he who first
subdued and tanned horse, and he who first stirred
and loOsened the soil for seed-bed by the help of
animal strength, have utterly crumbled into name
less dust. We know who showed Europe how 10
make and use gunpOwder we cannot guess who
taught her to fabrics of Wool and lax for de
tense against the caprces of weather and the rgors
of Winter we are familiar with the modern achieve
ments of Marlborough, and SAKE, and Prussias Fred
erick while we know little Of Passy and Jacquard
and Brindley and Watt yet that little has sated
our curiosity. The conquess of the Great Napoleon
turned to ashes years before he died. while those far
vaster, Of our Fulton still being extended
| and consolidated; yet millions eagerly pore over
volumes narratIng the former, where thousands
| YEARLY yawn pages describing the latter
| Right well do we known that the of carnage and
devastation has not closed; but is it not high time
that the sway of peaceful fruitful Industry should
| begini
Our average reading corrupts more than it en-
| lightens and humanlzes The apprentice, whose
every leisure hour is absorbed in gloating the
adventurous robberies Of Jack Sheppard, is clearly
| not on the highway to eminence in the trade he
learns only to despise but how much better cacu-
lated to render him skillful mechanic and useful
citizen are the pages of Napiers Peninsular War,
Allisons Modern Europe, the Napoleonic romances
| of the Rev. John S. c. Abbott
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs OF
thistlesp ~ We poison the minds of our youth with
| q delusive glamour which makes Industry seem
| dull and trivial and then wonder that they shuD
| patient plodding work, and WOO success through
hazardous speculation and gambling adventure.
We virtually teach them that the husbandman's
life is poor and paltry and then wonder that they
despise and shun it. We must reverse the engine,
and teach the essential nobeness of even an undis-
tingushed but useful career of manly labor-the
nobleness that is or at least the nobeness that may
and yet shall be.
hail this Exhibition as one among many we'll
aimed efforts which contemplate goOd-efforts, not
to discredit disparage the good work of the
patriot soldier statesman, but to diuse grateful
and practical conviction that the Nobility of Labor
of Labor impelled and dignifed by generous
and exalted aims-is Of all earth's aristocracy the
oldest and the newest-the first and the last.
As we can best apprehend the general through
particulars, let me first briefly consider American
Agriculture, it has been it is and az IL must
| and shall be.
The settlement of our country by Englishspeaking
Europeans became fixed fact two centuries and a
half since; but it is not much hundred years
since it's prominence and Importance were assured
by the defeat and death of Moncalm with the cOnse
quent surrender of the Canadas by France. Ameri-
can Independence still lacks some years of having
completed its first century. Immense territorial
expansion, with population swelled from less than
four to more than forty millions and proportional
increase of power among the proofs OF American
Progress during that still uncompeted century; but
where is corresponding progress in popular mas
terry and Improvement of the soil and It's benehcens
In 1870, each arabic acre in the Union if freely
plOwed and seeded, would have returned an average
of not less than twenty-five bushels oi Wheat now,
our statsticans our average yield OF that
grain falls below twelve bushels, and VIII tins year
hardly exceed ten. And the local decadence OF our
Wheat-harvest is pretty closely measured by the
time our lands have respectively been subject 10 cu
tvatiOn. NewEngland, a century since, produced
all the Wheat she consumed she now produces nor
hundredth part of it,. Ii is not yet hity years
since, while clearing land in western vermont, saw
long strings of farmers wagons, loaded with wheat
grown in the northern part OF that Stat; pass
daily on their way to market at Troy and Albany
now, Vermont grows no Wheat or next to none, and
buys her bread of Iowa and Minnesota. DO n0t
say that she gave up Wheat to grow crops which
yield greater profit; for western New. f0rk-m0re
recently the very focus Of Wheat -growlngI&ha & to
lowed in her footsteps, with Northern OHIO hard at
her heels. The Wheat-crop moves rapidly westward
Ohio once the Egypt of the New World, no longer
grows her own bread and Indiana will soon be
fed by Nebraska and Dakota One generation slf-
fees to exhaust the Wheat growing capacity of
new district; thereafter, it buys its bread of some
newer less abused region. How soon must we at
this rate look for bread to Nevada and Oregon!
If this were the dictate of law of niggard Ma
ture-f exhausted region of it's capacity to pro-
duce Wheat we do of its ability to produce Gold
we might deplOre the fact without seeking to reverse
it, But other countries have been growing Wheat
from time immemOria, with no such result, but the
contrary. In 1900 the British wheat-crop averaged
twelve bushels per acre it is now twentysix mean-
time has declined in proportion as hers has IN
creased until las we have seem our product, which
have been at least twenty-five bushels per acre
in lSOO is now less than twelve And there be
reasonable doubt that much of our countTys sur
face has been titled for half century or more Is
intrnsically less valuable to-day than 1t was when
Columbus first set his foot the shore OF the New
World.
And the reason is simply this: The greater mum
Der of farmers have not yet been taught and do
not fully comprehend, that the cutyators art con-
ssts mainly in adding 10 the so IN crude cheap jorm;
materials elements Thich returned 10 MIN IN such
shape and under such ROrei conditions and combinations,
that their rdlue Is increased tueRty my, and erer
hundred tOld There are incidents which qualify TINS
statement, but do not really mpugn it, lie who
transmutes filthy, worthless rags INTO pure; an1
dainty note-papeT, and he who converts muck anu
Ofal into wheat and vegetables, are alike manHahc h
turers and the of each must depehd 9n J
abundance of his materials and his sklh anu anu
eara m Ipln fham-