No. 105.] 63 



societies, might render the public an essentia] service by visiting all 

 the sequestered rural districts in the State, and giving lectures free to 

 all. By this means they could collect and impart a great deal of 

 truly useful information. 



Every person in the State is interested in having the soil improved, 

 and made more valuable and productive. All are injured when the 

 soil is exhausted by bad culture, and a large number of our rural 

 population emigrate to other States and territories. 



If our agricultural papers and volumes of transactions are worth 

 any thing, surely more than one farmer in fen should take and read 

 them. On the contrary, if the experience of the most successful hus- 

 bandmen in the country is valueless, simply because it is printed in 

 a legible form on paper, then no practical tiller of the earth should 

 read the experience of others engaged in the same pursuit with him- 

 self. 



The human family have been brought to their present condition in 

 knowledge, civilization and the arts, by practising a system of mutual 

 instruction. The observation and experience of no one man alone, 

 in the w^orld, can make him wise in any branch of human knowledge. 

 Hence it is, that the wisest men are those who take the most pains 

 not only to learn from their own personal investigations, but from the 

 researches, experience, and thoughts of all pursuing similar occupa- 

 tions. If any object to the plans now in use, for diffusing agricultu- 

 ral information, let them lose no time in bringing forward better ones 

 for the adoption of all. 



The field is large enough for every one to exercise his utmost skill 

 at " making two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before." 

 The little which has already been accomplished by the friends of 

 improvement, in that regard, is most valuable, because it demon- 

 strates the practicability of doubling the agricultural products of New- 

 York. This is but a money view of the subject. The general im- 

 provement of the soil, domestic animals, and fruits of the State, im- 

 plies, W'hat is of infinitely more importance, the intellectual and 

 moral improvement of more than half of the whole population of 

 the commonweath. The study of the science of rural economy by 

 the rising generation, is eminently calculated to make them better, as 

 well as wiser citizens of this republic. 



All of which is respectfully submitted. 



DANIEL LEE. 



