FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 117 



Prominent among the important features of this organization, is the oppor- 

 tunity it affords to the farmer for intellectual culture. As it meets from week 

 to week, it is to all who attend, a constant educator in parliamentary practice, 

 and in the proper manner of conducting deliberative bodies, — an important 

 department of education in which the farmers of our country have, in the 

 past, been very deficient, but in which to-day there is no one class of our citi- 

 zens better posted than are the members of this order. 



Then also the whole range of questions immediately connected with the 

 interests of agriculture are, from time to time freely discussed, — the causes of 

 success and the reasons for failure in any and every department of agriculture 

 are carefully considered and noted, — the comparative value and peculiarities 

 of different breeds of stock, — what crops are best adapted to the soil of any 

 given locality, and how best to grow them, — the particular merits or demerits 

 of different farm implements, — in fact, every subject connected with the farm, 

 the orchard, the dairy, or the household, are thoroughly canvassed, — views 

 compared, facts given, and the results of experiments brought forward. Thus 

 an ability to publicly communicate their views to others in an intelligent and 

 instructive manner, is attained by those who had heretofore been entirely un- 

 accustomed to do so, — thought is awakened and stimulated, and emulation in 

 their calling excited. From the ripe experience and mature judgment of those 

 who have for a long time made any given branch of farming a specialty, their 

 associates gather a large amount of valuable practical information ; and as 

 agriculture opens the broadest fields for thought and investigation, when once 

 the mind is awakened to the importance and dignity of the calling, intelligent 

 labor becomes less a drudgery and more interesting. A desire for more knowl- 

 edge is stimulated, the best writings upon agriculture are sought after, libra- 

 ries principally of an agricultural character are being collected in many of our 

 Granges, agricultural papers are better patronized and more carefully read, 

 and Farmers' Institutes, a recent feature that indicates the intellectual awak- 

 ening among farmers, are highly appreciated and numerously attended. A 

 more intimate acquaintance is growing up between our scientific and our prac- 

 tical agriculturists, and our agricultural colleges are constantly growing in 

 l^opular favor, and fast rising to take prominent positions among the most im- 

 portant and popular educational institutions of our land, and agriculture and 

 its intelligent votaries are rapidly advancing to that position in popular esti- 

 mation, that to it, and them, rightfully and justly belongs. 



Never, probably, in the history of any country has there been in the same 

 length of time so wonderful an advance in the labor-saving character and 

 practical utility of farm machinery, so great improvement in the stock upon 

 the farm, or in the general character of the agriculture of a people, as has 

 been made in this country, especially in the great grain, meat and wool pro- 

 ducing west, during the past ten or fifteen years. 



A member of the British government, who was better acquainted with the 

 past history of American agriculture than with its present character, stated 

 some time since that "although America could now flood tlie world with her 

 surplus productions, delivering both grain and meat in English markets and upon 

 the continent cheaper than European agriculture could produce them, very 

 much to the detriment of the farmers of those countries, still in his judgment 

 this state of things could not last more than a generation or so longer, for 

 American agriculture was a land-impoverishing system, and judging the future 

 by the past, it would not be long before the vast grain-growing sections would 



