1(30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that "a clear saving of twenty-five million dollars might be made 

 in the article of seeding in a single year." What then must be 

 the annual loss in our extended country ? From an estimate I have 

 made, which is undoubtedly an approximation to the truth, I have 

 no dovibt the loss in this State in over-seeding is half a million of 

 dollars annually ! 



But I will not longer indulge in this view of the subject. Plenty 

 of noble examples have made it sufficiently clear that the soil is 

 capable of being made to produce treble ivhat it now reluctantly 

 yields. The lion in the way, is the want of knowledge — ive know 

 not hoiv to treat it. To gain this knowledge, and enable the 

 farmer to avail himself of all the helps which benificient Nature 

 has placed within his reach, is now clearly his duty, and ought to 

 be his pleasure. How he shall do this, and through what agencieB 

 and influences, is a question more difficult to settle. 



In the first place, individual effort must lead the way. In imita- 

 tion of mechanics and manufacturers, the farmer must exercise 

 close and constant observation, and bring to his own operations the 

 advantages to be derived from tlie study and experiments of 

 others. The cotton or woolen manufacturer acts upon a suggestion 

 of the slightest improvement, and varies a color of his fabric to 

 suit the public taste, or alters its shape to adapt it to the machinery 

 he drives. The architect studies every form in nature to enable 

 him to present an elegant or imposing facade, or to span rivers 

 with bridges of gossamer work, yet of surpassing strength — and 

 so does the sculptor, to give life and beauty to the marble under 

 his hands. 



The mechanic eagerly seizes eviery suggestion of genius, and 

 transfers his thought to our machines, and supplies us with Reap- 

 ers, Tlireshers, Mowers and Seed-gatherers, and thus averts a vast 

 amount of human toil. The machinist catches the results of other 

 reasoning minds, adds them to his own, and perfects his work, so 

 that we arc rapidly carried ou our way at forty miles an hour, or 

 produce cotton cloth for the world at the rate of thousands of 

 yards in a day from a single mill. These are examples for the 

 farmer ; he must be a thinker too, as well as a worker. He must 

 transfer to his own fields the 'experiences of others — make their 

 results his starting points — then, adding his own careful investiga- 

 tions, advance to higher modes of culture. 



But the farmer must not be content with the aid derived from an 

 appropriation of the ideas of active and ingenious minds about 



