114 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



business, and in every profession, have long since recognized the advantages of 

 cooperation, and by organization in various forms have developed and built up 

 the interests with wliich they were more particularly connected. 



But in looking over the liistory of the ])tist one very remarkable fact is 

 brought to our attention, that while all other classes and interests have thus 

 been calling organization to their aid, one class, more numerous perhaps than 

 all other classes combined, whose occupation as tillers of the soil lies at the 

 foundation of the very existence of society, and in whose success the world is 

 as much interested, to say the least, as in any other, has never to any extent 

 attempted until very recently to develop and build up the great interests of 

 agriculture and those connected therewith by organized, cooperative eifort. 

 Lying at the foundation of state and national wealth and greatness, — developing 

 and producing to a very large extent the wealth of the world, — still those con- 

 nected with agriculture have had little to do, directly, with shaping the politi- 

 cal or controlling the business affairs of society. AVhile the ignorant man 

 could be a farmer, and in some cases a successful one, still in no occupation or 

 profession was there a necessity for more thought, a clearer judgment, or a 

 more thorough knowledge of nature's laws in order that the greatest success 

 might be attained, and yet until very recently we have had few text books or 

 schools particularly designed to fit the farmer for his occupation. And what 

 was worse still, a public sentiment which has always prevailed where despotism 

 reigned was fast gaining ground in our own land, that the tiller of the soil 

 needed but little mental culture. 



So general had this sentiment become that farmers themselves had come 

 almost universally to adopt it, and until within a few years, nothing was more 

 common thau to hear farmers sneeringly speak of "book-farming" not only 

 as of no value, but as a thing to be despised. And as the sons of the rural 

 home began to look forth upon the active scenes of society, and to choose tiieir 

 life-work, mental culture, a liberal education, and if possible four years in 

 classic halls, was thought important for such of them as designed to enter the 

 professions, or engage in some of the more popular business pursuits ; but if 

 perad venture anyone or more of those sons was to be "nothing but a farmer," 

 if he could read, write and cipher a little, that was all that was thought neces- 

 sary. Not only in our own State, but wherever in our country schools were 

 established, the special design of which was to teach science as adapted to 

 agriculture and the mechanic arts, some of the most bitter opposition that 

 such schools had to encounter was from farmers themselves. From the stand- 

 point of to-day it is easy to see what were the natural results of such a public 

 sentiment, both ujoon farmers themselves and upon their occupation. As a 

 class, although many among them were men of superior native ability and 

 sound judgment, very few came forward as leaders in society, or occupied posi- 

 tions of honor or trust, and although by far the most numerous class in com- 

 munity, they had little to do directly in giving shape to the affairs of society. 

 The rural homes which should be, and may bo, beautiful and inviting even if 

 humble, lacked to a great extent those evidences of culture which an intelli- 

 gent and refined taste could easily have thrown around them, and they came 

 to be considered, especially by the young, as places of drudgery and toil, and 

 the life of the former as undesirable as compared with the opportunities of the 

 village and city. 



Until within a score of years there was comparatively little improvement 

 made in farm machiner}-, and our system of agriculture had been to an alarm- 



