of his occasional addresses, which were very numerous; for though the main purposes of his life were such as ’wrote themselves in action not in word,’ he regarded his faculty of ready and effective speaking as an engine which it was his duty to use, whenever occasion arose, for the purpose of conciliating or instructing.  In proposing the toast of ’Prosperity to the Agricultural Association of Upper Canada,’ he said:—­

[Sidenote:  Speech at an agricultural meeting.]

Gentlemen, the question forces itself upon every reflecting mind, How does it come to pass that the introduction of agriculture, and of the arts of civilised life, into this and other parts of the American continent has been followed by such astonishing results?  It may be said that these results are due to the qualities of the hardy and enterprising race by which these regions have been settled, and the answer is undoubtedly a true one:  but it does not appear to me to contain the whole truth; it does not appear to account for all the phenomena.  Why, gentlemen, our ancestors had hearts as brave and arms as sturdy as our own; but it took them many years, aye, even centuries, before they were enabled to convert the forests of the Druids, and the wild fastnesses of the Highland chieftains, into the green pastures of England and the waving cornfields of Scotland.  How, then, does it come to pass, that the labours of their descendants here have been rewarded by a return so much more immediate and abundant?  I believe that the true solution of this problem is to be found in the fact that here, for the first time, the appliances of an age, which has been prolific beyond all preceding ages in valuable discoveries, more particularly in chemistry and mechanics, have been brought to bear, under circumstances peculiarly favourable, upon the productiveness of a new country.  When the nations of Europe were young, science was in its infancy; the art of civil government was imperfectly understood; property was inadequately protected; the labourer knew not who would reap what he had sown, and the teeming earth yielded her produce grudgingly to the solicitations of an ill-directed and desultory cultivation.  It was not till long and painful experience had taught the nations the superiority of the arts of peace over those of war; it was not until the pressure of numbers upon the means of subsistence had been sorely felt, that the ingenuity of man was taxed to provide substitutes for those ineffective and wasteful methods, under which the fertility of the virgin soil had been well-nigh exhausted.  But with you, gentlemen, it is far otherwise.  Canada springs at once from the cradle into the full possession of the privileges of manhood.  Canada, with the bloom of youth yet upon her cheek, and with youth’s elasticity in her tread, has the advantage of all the experience of age.  She may avail herself, not only of the capital accumulated in older countries, but also of those treasures of knowledge which have been