No. 112.] 247 



fessions for theirs. They are not educated to make improve- 

 ment, and to advance through the agency of knowledge applied 

 to practice. This evil is not confined to this country. It is so in 

 Europe ; in Holland, and in Friesland, for example, there is 

 among the farming community a deep rooted prejudice against 

 any new improvements, any innovation upon old customs. In 

 the latter, an educated gentleman imported some improvedkinds 

 of farming implements, and compelled his workmen to use them. 

 Eut he soon fuund them almost constantly out of order. Taking 

 an opportunity, and watching, he perceived that the workmen 

 broke them, so strong was their feeling against their introduction 

 and use. A like feeling exists also in France, and in Durham, 

 England, they now pursue the same mode of cultivation, using 

 the same implements and the same rotation that they did eighty 

 years ago, and with only this difiVrence, that they get smaller 

 crops. The Scottish highlands afford still another instance, pro- 

 ducing scarcely sufficient to sustain life. 



But we can come nearer home than this. We can find nume- 

 rous instances all over the country, where, like the worn out 

 tobacco plantations of Virginia, our lands produce much less 

 than when they were unbroken by the plow. As a general rule, 

 in many districts, they do not produce any greater quantity, and 

 are in not so good a condition, as when their cultivation was first 

 commenced. There are, it is pleasing to reflect, some excep- 

 tions ; but they are "exceptions." The farmers are awakening, 

 but they are not fully awake. Their advancement is slow, and 

 the great reason why this is so, is because of that deep rooted 

 prejudice already referred to. So long as men will hold to views 

 and customs, because their fathers did so before them, so long 

 will the onward movement of agriculture, science, and the up- 

 ward progress of the farming community, be slow and uncertain. 

 In England at tliis day, you may see six horses befiTjaplow, 

 with one man to drive, and another to hold the plow ! And all 

 this is done for no other reason than th it their fithers haye 

 done so, and they will therefore follow the same mode, although 

 one or two horses and one man could do the work just as well. 



