PROGRESSIVE AGRICULTURE. 17'3 



Individual effort, then, is the first step in agricultural progress. 

 The next must be associated eflfort, beginning' with town clubs and 

 exhibitions, then the county and State. These are in progress 

 among us, and should be cherished as the moving cause of a 

 degree of prosperity greatly desired, and which may be attained 

 througji their influence. No other means of spreading improve- 

 ments among the people, are so direct and applicable as those 

 flowing from club discussions and public exhibitions. They bring 

 men, women and children to feel an immediate and home-interest 

 in the matter ; their pride and their skill are alike interested 

 by the general competition, and an ambition is awakened rarely 

 felt by those outside of these associations. This ambition prompts 

 to new excellencies in everything relating to the farm ; — its 

 buildings, fields, crops, fruits, stock, fences, drainage ; — to dairy 

 products, implements and vehicles ; to neat and tasteful cultiva- 

 tion, and promotes a desire for something of the ornamental and 

 picturesque. 



Encouragement to agriculture as a science cannot be a mistaken 

 idea, when a whole nation, as it were with a common impulse, has 

 raised its voice in its favor. But, as in political afiairs, the 

 people are in advance of their rulers. They know that aggregated 

 wealth, with the protection aff"orded by government, has brought 

 our manufacturing interests to great prosperity, and in point of 

 excellence to compete with the world. But the farmer cannot 

 pursue his business in this way. His occupation is peculiarly a 

 solitary one. He is more alone in his pursuits than the mechanic, 

 the merchant or the professional man. His work must be done in 

 the country, where opportunities to compare opinions, practices 

 and results must be few. He cannot aff'ord to raise funds to 

 establish schools or colleges to teach his children the science of 

 agriculture, while at the same time ho bears his full proportion to 

 support those founded for other purposes. In a spirit of en- 

 lightened liberality, this should be done by the fostering care of the 

 State. A wise investment of the public funds — either State or 

 national — in rendering facilities to the people for agricultural 

 improvements, would be returned in a four-fold degree to the 

 public treasury. So sensible have most of the States become of 

 this fact, that they no longer hesitate to make special appropria- 

 tions for this purpose. Iowa, young as she is, saw this and 

 appropriated $200 to each county society. The Legislature 

 of Michigan gave in 1846, $400 a year for five years ; Indiana 



