68 [Senate 



in no record, and has not, nor can it have, a marked and material 

 influence upon the coming generations. 



The progress of hnman improvement is by slow and certain stages j 

 a regular advance from what is known to what is unknown ; and when 

 things are so ordered that men can take in at a single glance the 

 accumulated experience of years, then is their onward course rapid and 

 certain. If the actual and annual experience of farmers had been 

 embodied in published transactions, or had farmers' clubs been long 

 in action and their accumulated doings now in existence, then would 

 the farmer have the materials for carrying forward his art to perfection 

 with rapidity and success. 



It is therefore desirable to place the farmer in such a position that 

 be will feel the influence of these annual contributions. In no way 

 can this be done so effectually as by placing this volume within his 

 reach. The very object of instituting the school district library, is to 

 induce a habit of reading, a most wise and salutary measure. To 

 induce the farmer to read a work composed annually from the contri- 

 butions of practical men, must surely be carrying out more certainly 

 the very design of the school district library. But in the opinion of 

 your committee, a still greater good will ultimately flow from this 

 arrangement. It is well known that farmrrs write with very great 

 reluctance. They seldom contribute any thing to the constantly 

 accumulating mass of useful knowledge. This results not from their 

 ignorance, but from diffidence or reserve incident to their mode of life» 

 But if they see annually a book composed by men of their own calling, 

 having no greater opportunities than themselves, such is the law of 

 human nature, that they will be desirous ultimately of imitating a 

 practice which is yearly contributing to their own thrift and prosperity. 

 Every successful farmer has something peculiar about his practiccj 

 which is the secret cause of his success, and the public have a deep 

 interest in becoming acquainted with that peculiarity. And when one 

 find another, year by year, shall have made public and placed on 

 record the secret of their prosperity, there will accumulate a mass cf 

 material from which some agricultural philosopher will digest a 

 system of husbandry that will place us far in advance of the present 

 system. 



The Chinese have made it a matter of state policy to perfect, it 

 possible, the art of husbandry. The faciltiy with which they support 

 the immense mass of their population, in the absence of all other 



