30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



through tlie voyage of life. And can the ship of agriculture, upon 

 that stormy sea, keep her reckoning, without quadrant, chart or 

 compass ? 



The advice of the celebrated Bakewell to farmers was, " to spare 

 no pains to know what others were doing;" and in this fast age, 

 when everything is upon the high pressure principle, — when cen- 

 turies are crowded into months, he who heeds not the advice, pays 

 dear for the whistle. Solomon, the wisest of men, said, " get wis- 

 dom, and with all thy getting get understanding;" and another 

 wise man has said, " reading makes the ready man, but practice 

 the perfect man." So to the farmer; reading — book-farming, if 

 you please — is an important auxiliary to success, the sine qua non, 

 but not the uUimalum. 



No farmer can hope for success at the present day in the vast 

 field of agricultural competition, who does not know what improve- 

 ments others are making; and no man can know that does not pat- 

 ronize the agricultural press. The reading and the non-reading 

 farmer are as opposite as the very antipodes. The first farms by 

 rule, reducing his labors to a system by well demonstrated agri- 

 cultural theorems, avails himself of every improvement in hus- 

 bandry, favoi's the introduction of labor-saving implements, believes 

 that " blood will tell," and in the race of progress is ready to start 

 with the age — the second, to use a cant phrase, "goes it blind," 

 farms by accident ; as his paternal ancestors did so does he, be- 

 lieves in making hard work harder, knows the natives are best, is 

 sure that book-knowledge is a humbug, and agricultural societies 

 a nuisance. With such qualifications he must inevitably be a mere 

 visionary in theory and a loser in practice. 



We are prompted to these expressions by no pecuniary interest 

 or influence whatever, but solely a desire to better the condition of 

 our fellow-husbandmen. To the farmer, this is the time to "try 

 men's souls," and well may he take hold of the plow with serious 

 thoughts. Superadded to the wants of Europe, which are empty- 

 ing our immense granaries, is that of our vast army, with its 

 increasing demands upon our flocks and fields, and when the propor- 

 tion between consumers and producers is rapidly increasing 

 against the producer, is an anxious present with a clouded future, 

 unless every farmer will avail himself of every agricultural im- 

 provement. But a small portion of our knowledge can be derived 

 ■from our own personal experience, hence the necessity of some 



