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some, Alladin's lamp did not possess a charm more sure — more potent 

 for riches, than the soil of Michigan. They were right in their conclu- 

 sions, but in their premises, wrong. You had but to rub the wonderful 

 lamp, and untold riches were at your command. They supposed that 

 to mark out the soil carelessly, or rather, by going over a most unfarmer- 

 like process, golden harvests •^'ould reward them — or they had only 

 to mark out in the sand with a cane, at some street corner, a plat of 

 their wild lands and village lots, puff them a few times, and sales were 

 expected, and fortunes secured. 



Their's was indeed a great mistake ! they did not rub the soil deep 

 enough, nor did they mark it out in the right spot, or puff in the prop- 

 er place. They should have rubbed and marked their grain fields deep- 

 ly with the plow, and pufied while removing cart loads of manure to 

 enrich the land they were fast impoverishing; then their golden dreams 

 might have been to a great extent realized. 



A re-action took place ; wild land and village lots suddenly lost their 

 fictitious value, and fell, in some cases, even below their actual value — 

 and with them fell the airy castles of the unthrifty farmer. 



He found that the soil was not as productive as he at first imagined ; 

 he found that he had sown too much and reaped too little ; that his land 

 was running down, and the sorrel running up. With these facts star- 

 ing him in the face, many of his class commenced the work of retrench- 

 ment and reform, and are to this day considered snug, intelligent, thrifty 

 farmers, free from debt^ and no longer money borrowers, but money 

 lenders. Others continued obstinately to rob their farms from year to 

 year, until they were rendered comparatively unproductive, then "pulled 

 up stakes," and moved farther west, where they are doubtless engaged 

 in the same disreputable business — robbing and pilfering from the soil. 



Upon the whole, I may congratulate you, my hearers, that the opin- 

 ion is fast gaining gi-ound among us, that a well educated mind is as 

 essential to qualify an individual to carry on farming operations success- 

 fully as it is to qualify one for a professor's chair, the bar, or the pulpit. 

 So long as this opinion continues to gather strength, and so long as 

 those high in authority feel and obey the dictates of such an opinion, 

 we need not fear for the standing and condition of the American Far- 

 mer. 



