SECRETARY'S REPORT. 29 



around him he is a stranger. But through the medium of an agri- 

 cultural publication, he sees at a glance what improvements his 

 brother-farmers are making, and what has been the accumulated 

 progress of the agricultural world. 



The object of every farmer, is success with the least manual 

 labor. He may be directed by his taste or capacities to some 

 special department of agriculture, as the rearing of stock, or the 

 cultivation of corn, or the culture of frqit, or a mixed husbandry, 

 and in either case, the question is, how shall success be easiest 

 and most successfully attained ? A problem that may cost a life- 

 time to work out, when its solution, how some have succeeded, 

 and why others have failed, may be found in any reliable agricul- 

 tural journal. Therein the ways and means of others' prosperity 

 become common property at a trifling expense. 



Let every farmer ask himself, what would be the effect upon the 

 public prosperity were the agricultural papers and periodicals and 

 associations to become non-existent, the concentrated action, power 

 and progress of the farmers dissevered, and each compelled to rely 

 upon his own puny exertions, — such a " dissolution" would not 

 only follow as the worst of traitors in their deepest rancor never 

 thought of, but universal adversity would overflow the land. 



The wealth of a country is based upon the surplus of its agricul- 

 tural products, hence the debt of a government is paid in large 

 measure from the cultivated lands of the country. And [{that cul- 

 tivation is to be carried on without associated effort, without con- 

 centrated action, without the agency of the agricultural press, the 

 gloomy prospect becomes gloomier still. 



In every other pursuit of life, success depends very much upon 

 an exchange of ideas, which exchange is effected by the public 

 press, becoming as it does a weekly summary of new ideas, dis- 

 coveries, conditions and proximate methods ; reflecting, not " as in 

 a glass darkly, but face to face" the progress of the day. Saith 

 the Latin proverb. Nemo solus sapit, no one is wise alone, a truth 

 preeminently applicable to the farmer. 



Of all the characters in the great drama of life, none are more 

 unsuccessful or unwise than that man whose mind is already sur- 

 feited with his own individual egotisms. 



The other great enterprises of life, the commercial, manufactur- 

 ing, mechanical and maritime, have their monthly, weekly, semi- 

 weekly, daily, morning and evening editions, an epitome to direct 



