Excerpt from Annual Address Before the Albany Institute: Delivered May 25, 1871

Sophic tastes, or his interest in agriculture, natural science and the mechanic arts. Our records bear witness to the zeal and intelligence with which he labored for these objects. He maintained an active correspondence on these subjects, with men of science, in other countries;'he kept himself acquainted with all the foreign publications of the time; he was unwearied in his agricultural experiments on his own farm, and the results of all these investigations were constantly communicated to the public through this society. During his four years' residence and travels in Europe, no member was more constant in contributions to our journals; nothing that could benefit the interests of agriculture or the arts at home escaped his attention the nature, treatment and productions of various soils, the succession of crops, the peculiarities and effects of climate, the modes of tillage, the qualities of different kinds of stock - in fact, everything that could be serviceable to the agricultural or economic interests of his own country was observed, with quick and practised eye, and the results communicated to the public through our Transactions. To him the country owes the introduction of the merino breed of sheep; and also a treatise on sheep, which appeared in our Transactions, and was long a standard work on the subject. He was also the first to introduce in this state, and establish by a course of experiments, the use of gypsum as a restorative to the exhausted soils of some of the older parts of the state. He was also the founder of the old Academy of the Fine Arts in the city of New York; and through his influence, he procured from Napoleon, then first consul, an admirable collection of casts from the masterpieces of ancient sculp ture, which the conqueror of Italy had brought as his trophies for the glory and adornment of Paris. I know not whether this collection be still preserved, but it was, at that day, one of great value as a means of art education in this country, and I well remember the pleasure and.

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