STATS AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 223 



to be made. That branch of industry to which this information should 

 and may be of the most advantage, and which is most entitled to its ben- 

 efits, is yet to learn or to experience the value of its application. Wo 

 refer to agriculture itself. It is to the farmers themselves that an early 

 and correct knowledge of what may bo and what is produced on the 

 farms of any and every country, should and will be of the most advan- 

 tage, and through them this knowledge will be rendered of the greatest 

 benefit to the Government. Guided by this valuable and timely intelli- 

 gence, the farmers will not only be led to cultivate those kinds and varie- 

 ties of productions best adapted to the soil and the climate, and most 

 demanded by the best interests of the country, but they will be thus ena- 

 bled to procure for those productions prices regulated honestly by the 

 laws of demand and supply, and not be compelled to receive, as is now 

 too much the case, the fictitious prices regulated by the schemes of specu- 

 lators. While the farmers are trudging and toiling, in planting, pro- 

 tecting, and harvesting their crops, they have no time or means to ascer- 

 tain the facts necessary to estimate the demand and supply. 



The speculator, on the contrary, stimulated by the prospects of large 

 gains, and having abundant leisure and means, possesses himself of all 

 the facilities, and thus learns each year the amount of productions held 

 over from the last harvest, investigates the average prices paid, keeps 

 himself well posted as to the state and prospect of the growing crops 

 throughout the. country, and being thus prepared, makes a very correct 

 estimate of the relative supply and demand, and coolly and systemati- 

 cally calculates his profits. 



By a combined effort the}^ operate upon the fears and necessities of the 

 farmers until they obtain the control of the market. When too late the 

 farmers discover that the profits of their year's labor have stepped, instead 

 of into their own pockets, where they legitimately belong, into those of 

 a comparatively few sharpers. Thus, from year to year, their hard earn- 

 ed gains slip from their hands just as they are about to secure them. 

 Their families are deprived of the comforts, and even necessaries, which 

 for a whole year past they had been faithfully and diligently striving for, 

 and which they had fondly but vainly anticipated would be their delight 

 to enjoy — to say nothing of the inability of many to pay the interest on 

 the debts, the principal of which they had promised and expected to can- 

 cel, and the disappointments and sufferings upon the failure. This is but 

 a half drawn picture, yet through it may be seen enough of the deform- 

 ities of .the whole. It indicates a state of things which should not be per- 

 mitted to continue in a State which seeks to deal fairly with and do 

 justice to all classes of its citizens. The above considerations, though 

 sufficient in themselves, are not the only ones which should prompt the 

 State government to correct these evils. It requires no very far seeing 

 mind to discover the effect thus produced on the general prosperity of 

 the State, and, as a consequence, the deficiency in the annual receipts of 

 revenue into her Treasuiy. 



To realize these facts in all their truthfulness and force, we have only 

 to reflect how much more a few millions of dollars, retained in the hands 

 of the farmers, and thus fairly distributed through the agricultural por- 

 tions of our State, in any one year, would add to the general prosp^-ity, 

 than docs the same amount deposited in the coffers or expended on the 

 mansions and equipages of a few. 



And again, how much more a thorough cultivation of the soil, a proper 

 adaptation of the crops to the same and to the climate, and a judicious 

 division of the kinds, varieties, and quantities of those crops, would add 



