STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 195 



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could reasonably be expected. Of its present position, comparin 

 it with that of the most enlightened nations, we have more reason 

 to be proud than to be ashamed. But are we to be satisfied '? 

 Shall we say it is enough ? Shall we rest on our laurels ? The 

 answer should be no, never, till the art of our husbandry equals 

 the magnificence of the domain to which we apply.it; never, till 

 the last vestige of the notion that the farmer is necessarily but a 

 very common, plain sort of a man, is dismissed to pandemonium, 

 where we suppose all sorts of errors prevail; never, till the whole 

 body of American farmers shall rise to an elevation unknown in 

 other lands, as evidentlv the conservators of the nation's laws and 

 liberties as they are the feeders of its hungry mouths. 



With regard to the prospects of JJmerican Agriculture^ it may 

 be remarked that great bodies move slowly; and the body of 

 American farmers is certainly a great body. It took England 

 from Alfred to Victoria to learn how to plow. Possibly we may 

 learn it between the days of Washington and the seventh succes- 

 sor of James Buchanan. It requires long for even the leading 

 minds to comprehend the few principles and practices of agricul- 

 ture. It would be absurd therefore to expect a whole nation to 

 comprehend them at once, or that any great reform in this line 

 would be commenced and finished in a short time. The perfec- 

 tion of agriculture depends in a great measure upon the farmers 

 themselves. No man living yet knows how to conduct a farm in 

 the best possible manner. As the application of steam to tlie 

 propelling of ships was a thing yet to be discovered in the early 

 days €>f Fulton, so a thousand truths and appliances, destined to 

 change and modify farm practice, are yet undiscovered. All we 

 can say is, that as science is torturing nature with more intensity 

 tlian ever before, and bringing out new truths more rapidly, tlu-re 

 is some reason fur believing tliat their application to tlie indus- 

 trial arts will be more rapid. Some have supposed tliat becauso 

 numerous discoveries have lately been made, few remain to be 

 made, as if forsooth mankind had all the knowledge they ever 

 will have. 



Wlien the Pennsylvania coal-heaver takes out one stratum, it 

 brings him nearer to another, but not nnu'h nearer the end of 

 those immense (h-posites. So if the miner after knowledge reaches 

 an undiscovered truth, it brings him nearer to another undiscov- 



