Agriculture is the foundation of all other industries. It is quite as indispensable for the support of armies in the field as it is for that of commerce and manufactures in the halcyon days of national repose. If those who have gone forth with arms in their hands to do battle for the preservation of our free government are performing services of the highest importance to the nation, those also who remain at home to till the earth are doing work indispensable to the success of our sacred cause. If they do not strike the enemy with their hoes and scythes, they at least sustain and invigorate those who carry the bayonet and meet the shock of actual war.
Under all circumstances the great operations of agriculture must still go on. The seasons do not cease their appointed rounds; the sun does not fail to dispense his genial stores of light and heat; nor do the fertilizing showers of heaven refuse to descend upon the soil, because the fierce passions of man have aroused him to discord and battle. Nature still maintains her serenity in the midst of all the fearful agitations of mankind; and she still scatters her blessings with a lavish hand, though they may be trampled under foot by the gathering hosts of infuriated men. Even, therefore, while the human tempest rages around us, we may well pause to contemplate the peaceful beneficence of nature, and to rejoice in the thought that all the wickedness and violence of man cannot provoke or derange into confusion and disorder the great natural elements which minister to his comfort and happiness—which cause the seed to germinate, the flower to bloom, and the fruit to ripen, regardless of all his passions, and in spite of his ingratitude. The unambitious pursuits of the husbandman may have in them nothing of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war; but they are at least in harmony with the beneficence of God and the permanent interests of man; while they are also of the highest importance to the country, even in the extremity of her peril.
The harvest, now approaching, everywhere gives promise of a bounteous supply of the productions which annually bless our favored land. The vast invading army of the enemy, soon to be driven with disaster out of the loyal States, will have made no serious impression upon the abundance of our overflowing stores. There may be some scarcity of labor to secure the maturing crops, but we shall still supply all our own wants abundantly, leaving a large surplus for shipment abroad, and even for meeting the necessities of our suffering brethren in the South, when they shall have utterly failed in their wicked purpose of destroying the Government, and when their sharp cry of hunger and suffering shall appeal to our relenting hearts for succor.
THE EARTH AND THE AIR.
The great bulk of all vegetation is derived from the atmosphere. The air is always loaded with watery vapor, and it contains a vast quantity of carbonic acid gas, which furnishes the chief material for the woody fibre of all plants, for the starch, sugar, gums, oils, and other valuable compounds produced by them. Nitrogen, also, is one of the large constituents of the air, and is found in it likewise in the form of ammonia. It is wonderful to reflect that of all the vegetable productions of the earth—its vast forests, the flowery clothing of its boundless prairies, the immeasurable productions raised by the industry of the whole human race in its countless fields of labor—that of all this mighty growth which covers and adorns the face of the whole solid globe, more than ninety-five hundredths are derived exclusively from the atmosphere. This vast ocean which surrounds the earth, in which we are immersed, and which is actually the breath of life to us, indispensable to our existence during every moment of our lives, is also the great reservoir from which the mighty vegetable world draws almost the whole of its substance. While we are inspiring the invisible fluid, and with every breath renewing the ruddy currents of the heart and sending them glowing with warmth and vitality to all the extremities of the frame, every leaf in the mighty forest, and every herb, and flower, and blade of grass on the surface of the whole earth, is maintaining a similar commerce with the air, drawing from its boundless stores of carbon, piling up cell upon cell and adding fibre to fibre, until trunk, and branch, and stem, and leaf, with all the gorgeous productions of vegetable life, stand forth in their maturity, filling the bosom of the conscious atmosphere with wonderful creations of beauty and fruits of joy.
But in fact the atmosphere is only an appendage to the solid earth, existing in that plastic form which is necessary to the creation both of animal and vegetable life. It is her breath, by which, as the minister of God, she breathes life into the nostrils of men and animals, and imparts vitality and growth to all plants. But in this life-giving process, she furnishes also a part, minute though it be, of her own proper substance. Consume with fire the trees of the forest, or the grass of the prairie, and though the greater part of the burning mass will disappear and mingle with the air from which it came, there will yet remain the ashes, which cannot be dissipated, but must return again to the earth which gave them. These solid constituents of plants are the contributions of the soil; and though they seem to be comparatively inconsiderable, yet when taken in connection with the large operations of agriculture continued through a series of years, they become so great as to be of the utmost importance. They perform an interesting part in the economy of vegetable life, for they are to the plant what the bones are to the animal. In the stalks of wheat and Indian corn, as indeed of all the grasses, the flinty surface is constituted largely of silex; as the shells of crustacea and the bones of animals are composed mostly of lime. Without these earthy substances, nothing that grows from the soil can come to perfection. They are equally important to animals and to man himself, who receives them from the vegetable world and assimilates them in his own marvellous organization—building up his bony frame with the lime of the earth; filling his veins with its iron; constructing the very seat and citadel of the soul, and flashing its spiritual mandates through the nerves, by the help of the phosphorus which he derives from the soil through the elaboration of plants and inferior animals.
WE'RE NOT TIRED OF FIGHTING YET!
Oh, we're not tired of fighting yet!
We're not the boys to frighten yet!
While drums are drumming we'll be coming,
With the ball and bayonet!
For we can hit while they can pound,
And so let's have another round!
Secesh is bound to lick the ground,
And we'll be in their pantry yet!
Oh, we're not tired of tramping yet—
Of soldier life or camping yet;
And rough or level, man or devil,
We are game for stamping yet.
We've lived through weather wet and dry,
Through hail and fire, without a cry;
We wouldn't freeze, and couldn't fry,
And haven't got through our ramping yet!
We haven't broke up the party yet;
We're rough, and tough, and hearty yet;
Who talks of going pays what's owing,
And there's a bill will smart ye yet!
So bang the doors, and lock 'em tight!
Secesh, you've got to make it right!
We'll have a little dance to-night;
You can't begin to travel yet!