190 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



call them. In this way agricultural improvement, over 

 the fence, or under, or through, is spreading even among 

 those who oppose it. The very men who hold hack^ are 

 going forward in spite of themselves. With some farmers — it 

 would not be true at this day to say of many — it is very much as 

 it was with a certain horse, that once lived, more famous for 

 using the after than forward part of the harness — when put into a 

 team with trhee other horses, all true and good, he went forward, 

 notwithstanding his propensity to push with the wrong end instead 

 of pulling with the right. 



That American agriculture was wretchedly low fifty years since, 

 that it is now advancing, that the great majority of the farmers 

 are desirous of increasing their skill and of bettering their con- 

 dition, that the very holders back, though a little behind as the 

 play of the gearing permits, are nevertheless going forward with 

 the team, is all too evident to require argument. We are mani- 

 festly rising from a condition, in which belles and beaux sneered 

 at the farmer, as if he must be a shabby, low-lived being of course, 

 to that in which to be the owner of a well-cultivated farm will 

 be honor enough to satisfy ordinary ambition. But whereabouts 

 in the upward march are we ? If we compare our progress to a 

 journey through the Empire State from Albany to Buffalo, what 

 is the point we have already reached ? The Queen city of the 

 lake does not heave into view. We see no Rochester yet, no 

 Geneva, no Syracuse. Perhaps it would approximate the truth t 

 say that we are approaching Utica. If so, we have come what 

 was a pretty long journey in the old stage times, but there is a 

 longer before us; and it depends very much upon what facilities 

 we avail ourselves of, whether we shall soon accomplish it. 

 Should progress on the farm be as rapid the next half century as 

 that on the road has been the last, and should science be applied 

 as intensely to agriculture as to other employments, results most 

 honorable to New- York as a state, and to the American people as 

 a nation may be anticipated. 



In estimating the present position of American agriculture, let 



us look, not singly at the employment, as a sort of abstraction, 



but at the men who live by it, and who give all the rest of us a 



' living. If the art could give plenty of cheap food, that might 



satisfy some, but we should not be satisfied unless it could elevate 



