SECRETARY'S REPORT. 23 



In past time it has been remarked of farmers as a fault, that they 

 are too slow — too indifferent to progress. This may be their virtue, 

 as the conservative power of the commonwealth. But we fear the 

 circumstance as related by the English nobleman too often has 

 found a counterpart. Some time after he had sent his people an 

 improved plow, he found it had been laid aside ; when they assigned 

 as a reason — " we be all of one mind, that it make the weeds grow." 



Farm laborers often lack the skill and tact requisite to adjust and 

 apply a new and complicated machine or implement. The machinery 

 of the workshop is superintended by schooled intelligence. 



The farmer, unlike the manufacturer, seldom goes abroad to learn 

 from observation the workings of the ivonders of progress that are 

 abroad in the world. The success of the merchant and the manu- 

 facturer, depends on their intelligence and quick adaptation of means 

 to ends. The farmer may remain at home, and "set his face as a 

 flint," against book-farming and all innovation; and continue to 

 live — merely vegetate by a round of labors such as were performed 

 in a former age; but without an " eye to the main chance," he is 

 often found grumbling at the profligacy of the times, and the ruin- 

 ous, "high-pressure," progress of the age, that recklessly outruns 

 all sober sense, sedate customs and commendable stability. 



We, who had our start in life in the rural districts, find that we 

 need something like the startling blast from a steam-whistle to 

 quicken our pulsation and keep us well up with the progress of the 

 day. The boy of today is a being measurably progressed from the 

 boy of a past age. He opens his eyes on busier scenes. At every 

 turn his points of contact receive a stimulus. The well appointed 

 school-roomj»improved books, a more extended round of studies, a 

 freer intercourse with men and things, — these improved facilities 

 early develop the man and fit him to occupy an advanced stand- 

 point. 



With this glance at our condition, we may look forward, and be 

 entirely safe in saying, that we are not likely to be overwhelmed 

 with labor. 



Whether we are to continue as heretofore without a leading agri- 

 cultural interest, or whether we shall aim to make stock husbandry 

 a prominent feature in our practice, it abates nothing from the in- 

 terest and importance to be attached to the inquiry, whether we 



