INFLUENCE OF TIIE AGRICULTURAL PRESS. 403 



of an elaborate treatise or exhaustive report. And if an editor 

 does not possess the leisure to produce, a ponderous work that will 

 rank among the tomes in a library, he certainly deserves a good 

 share of praise for making up a sound, readable, suggestive 

 paper, which carries with it, week after week, into every school 

 district in the land, fresh, seasonable and instructive reading. He 

 also performs a good service for the very writers, whose elaborate 

 productions would seldom be read by the masses in their original 

 form, by condensing their works, and presenting them in a man- 

 ner to be easily comprehended by common readers. In this way, 

 the works of Liebig, and Voelcker and Bousingault, and Johnson, 

 become of practical value to men who would never be benefitted 

 by their investigations did they seek acquaintance with them in 

 their original forms ; while to present articles of seasonable 

 worth, which practical farmers can take advantage of for their 

 , own profit, is a labor deserving of as much commendation as the 

 preparation of a volume demanding a years' time. The oppor- 

 tunities of benefitting his readers are certainly in favor of the 

 newspaper writer. He. has a larger audience than the book- 

 maker, for where one man reads a book, fifty read the papers. A 

 newspaper in a family is better than three months schooling in a 

 year, and for the small sum of four cents a week, annually, a man 

 can obtain reading and information which in book form would cost 

 twenty-five dollars, and perhaps be beyond his reach. We can 

 never fully appreciate the blessings of cheap newspapers for the 

 people, and never overrate the services of those who have been 

 foremost in establishing them. The farmer can better dispense 

 with his plow than his paper. 



Consider the work that has been accomplished by the agricul- 

 tural newspaper press during the past forty years. What igno- 

 rance it has dispelled from the common mind — what a rich store of 

 information it has carried to millions of homes, many of which, 

 but for the agency of a cheap press, must have long remained a 

 stranger to the ennobling influences of intelligence and culture — 

 what incentives it has given young men to rise above condition or 

 place and reach out after the high prizes in life — what social and 

 intellectual elevation it has wrought for working people— what in- 

 crease in the value of all farm products it has effected by diffusing 

 a knowledge of their most economical production — what large 

 areas of worthless land it has made valuable by giving informa- 

 tion as to draining, subsoiling and the different processes of 



