missioner shall prepare and report to the legislature at the commencement of its annual session in the year 1846, a revision of the general laws of the state, in conformity with the suggestions above made. This plan, if found expedient, will secure all the advantages of having three commissioners to do the work, while the salaries of two of them will be saved, the supervision and direction of the revision, not being likely to occupy so much of the time of the judicial officers mentioned, as essentially to interfere with their other official duties; and the whole time and attention of the commissioner will be exclusively devoted to the principles, and details, and labor to the undertaking. S. M. GREEN, Chairman. SENATE } LEGISLATURE 1844. Report of the Committee on Agriculture. The committee on agriculture in pursuance of a resolution adopted on the tenth instant for the encouragement of agriculture, would respectfully submit the following report: That it is deemed the bounden duty of a sovereign state to take measures for its own preservation, and it will not be denied that every sovereign state is under a like obligation to increase its riches and power by all justifiable means; the more any state abounds with vigorous inhabitants, and with the necessaries and convenience of life, the greater is its capacity to defend itself against foreign aggression and to maintain its maratime rights. Nothing, perhaps has a tendency to increase a hardy and vigorous race of inhabitants, and supply a state abundantly with all the necessaries and comforts of life, more than a judicious and industrious cultivation of a fertile soil. In proportion, as agriculture is improved, a greater population can be supported on the same given space, and a larger surplus product realized. It is agriculture which is to supply the hands of manufacturers with materials, and their mouths with bread, and it is this which is to freight the ships of the merchant. And in proportion as the knowledge and practice of this important art progresses, a state will be able to maintain when necessary larger armies and fleets for its protection and defence. That the cultivation of the earth is the primary and most certain source of natural supply, as the immediate and chief source of those materials which constitute the nutriment of other kinds of labor as including a state most favorable to the freedom and independence of the human mind, and are perhaps more conducive to the multiplication of the human species, has intrinsically a strong claim to permanence over every other kind of industry. But although so many advantages seem to be the natural consequences of agriculture, the earth |