secretar.Y's report. 35 



is saved is gain, in England they try who can piVt most money 

 into the land. The small farmer, who has only "a few hundred 

 pounds of patrimony, does not hesitate to embark it any more 

 than the great capitalist who has ten times, or a hundred times as 

 much. Both launch out together, and generally upon the faith 

 of an ordinary annual lease, expending sums which would seem 

 •enormous with us, and which proprietors alone would here un- 

 dertake." 



How can this wide difference between the fanners of Maine 

 and the farmers of England, where agriculture has confessedly 

 attained the highest d-egree of improvement yet developed any 

 where, or between our farmers aiid business men, properly so 

 called, immediately around them, be accounted for otherwise than 

 because the one lacks, and the other has faith in it as a business 

 in which capital and skill may be profitably employed ? 



If it be inquired how this lack of confidence has so generally 

 obtained; the answer may probably be found, in part, from the im- 

 perfect modes of cultivation generally pursued, and which result 

 in far too scanty and precarious crops, but mainly from the fact 

 that farming is not, exceept in a few isolated cases, carried 

 on in such a systematic manner, that the operators themselves 

 know T,'ith certainty, v/hether the pursuit yields a profit or not. 

 Hence the question so often asked, whether farming be profita- 

 l)lc or not, has received widely different answers, or rather 

 •opinions, and the reason is, that there arc scarce any data from 

 "which to judge. 



It is an undoubted fact, that agricultural pursuits are more 

 surely remunerative, and more certainly yield a comfortable 

 competence to such as engage in them with skill, energy and 

 perseverance, than trade, commerce, manufactures, or any of the 

 so called learned professions. It has been shown on good 

 authority, that about two-thirds of those who engage in trade 

 make disastrous failure of it; that about one-third only are 

 even moderately successful, and only one in a hundred eminently 

 so. With the tillers of the soil, it is otherwise. Few either fail 

 or amass great wealth, while the great majority attain compar- 

 ative competence and comfort. 



But in order to command confidence as a pursuit, and to at- 

 tract all need«ul aids to the highest degree of successful devel- 



