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observation founded upon careful experiment, or they may be learned 

 from agricultural books, but without a knowledge of which the farm- 

 ers would make but slow progress in agricultural improvement, and 

 would hardly be able with the most valuable farm, with thousands of 

 money and means at his command, to make farming a profitable 

 business, 



I am aware that there is a very great prejudice existing in the minds 

 of many farmers, against everything which they may be pleased to 

 call scientific or book farming. Because some things which have 

 been published as successful experiments in the agricultural papers 

 have proved a failure when tried under other circumstances, they 

 are ready to exclaim: "Oh! the folly of book learning — our 

 fathers did so and so, and so do we. Go where you will, all over the 

 country, and you can tell one of these farmers by simply passing by his 

 premises, along the public highway. He draws all his water by means 

 of an old fashioned crotch and well pole, uses bars instead of gates be- 

 tween his inclosures, keeps his wagons, carts, plows and drags exposed 

 to the storm and tempest, raises horses, sheep and cattle of the breed 

 of Ins-and-Ins all run out, the little yellow kind of corn, the flesh- 

 colored potatoes, the old-fashioned bald or bearded wheat, fruit all of 

 the common varieties, plants his potatoes, sows his peas, and kills his 

 pork in the moon, and always wonders that his neighbors are so much, 

 more successful in their farming operations than he is. 



Such men occasionally raise a good crop, because their own expe- 

 rience helps them to distinguish between right and wrong a part of 

 the time, and when they fail in their calculations, they call it bad luck 

 without even stopping to inquire the reason, or imagining they can 

 benefit themselves by studying out the cause of their failure. In nine 

 cases out of ten, when a man raises a poor crop, it is the result of bad 

 farming. In this State the present year there are very few poor crops 

 except in the article of corn. We presume most of those who raise 

 a poor crop of this article will lay it wholly to the season. But we- 

 have proof conclusive that this will be a false charge if made. We 

 have traveled over considerable of the State, and we found good com 

 gi-owing upon every variety of soil, from the stiffest clay to the lightest 

 sand, while wo found the poorer crops growing only across the way 

 and right alotig side of the best ones, the corn of one man as stout as 



