514 [Assembly 



Extract from the Address of T. B. Arden, President a 



In calling upon you for aid in our common cause, do not under- 

 stand me to refer solely to our financial interest, for however im- 

 portant the dollars and cents may be, they must take a secondary 

 position when brought in contact with that principle which, act- 

 ing upon the nobler man, directs the implement of the farmer^ 

 the analysis of the chemist, the calculations of the philosopher^ 

 or the researches of the naturalist, with the same unerring results. 

 A cultivated understanding, a mind eager to find out the effect of 

 every pause which maybe acting within the circle of any man's 

 farm, is what I would earnestly call upon you to throw into the 

 garners of our association. The wir don of our Legislature, which 

 induced them to embody in the act incorporating the State and 

 county Societies, the one clause requiring competitors for pre- 

 miums in agriculture, "to deliver in writing to the Secretary of 

 the Society an accurate decription of the process in preparing the 

 soil, (including the quality and quantity of manure applied, ) and 

 raising the crops, or in feeding the animal, as maybe, and also the 

 expense and product of the crop, or of increase of value in the ani- 

 mal, w^th a view of showing accurately the profits of cultivating 

 the crop or feeding the animal," is worthy of our highest respect;, 

 for every practical and common sense man must at one glance 

 see, that without these statements we have no data to make up 

 our conclusions from; and. therefore no common medium to com- 

 municate either our successes for the advancement of our cause, 

 or our failures, to warn the farmer of the shoal that wrecked a 

 whole season's labor. Whereas, let any man keep a journal of his 

 farm transactions, and unhesitatingly commit to paper tLe various, 

 operations of his farm, and let them, through the medium of the 

 county paper, or a committee report, be presented to the com- 

 munity, and the time is not far distant when thorough culture 

 will replace what I fear is now hardly ordinary tillering; at least 

 such are the means by which our operations will be reduced to a 

 system, and from the habit of recording the various details of the 

 farm, will grow a methodical routine of farm accounts by which^ 

 at the end of the year, each farmer will not only be able to tell 

 what are his stores, but the amount of each, together with what 

 each load of hay or bushel of grain cost him, and kaowing this he 



