FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE. 365 



inhabitants of a town assemble for a common object. It is too 

 often the case that neighbors liave but few social ties, if they 

 happen to worship God at different altars. I ask you all if this 

 is right ? Does it become us as townsmen ? Does it become 

 us as Christians ? 



The farmer needs some system by whicli all the improve- 

 ments in his calling may be instantly brought to his notice ; 

 by which he may learn as early as possible the introduction of 

 new machinery and new seeds, new breeds of cattle and new 

 modes of treating the soil. 



I know of no better 'change for him than farmers' institutes 

 and farmers' clubs, which shall meet regularly and as often as 

 practicable, to discuss the modes of farming and the principles 

 which may be most worthy of application. 



Suppose a farmers' club, for instance, established in every 

 town and every village, furnished witli a library suitable and 

 accessible to all the reading community, meeting on grounds 

 strictly neutral in politics and religion. What would be the 

 result ? In the first place it would promote the best social 

 feelings and elevate the social qualities and the social position 

 of the farmer. It would increase the intercourse between 

 neighbors, separated, it may be, by sectarian and unchristian 

 prejudices, as much as if an ocean rolled between them. Men 

 would discover the sweet fountains of humanity welling up in 

 many a heart, where they expected to find only bitterness and 

 hatred. New and enlarged ideas would bo spread abroad by 

 lectures and discussions, placing before the thinking commu- 

 nity whatever improvements others are making, and enabling 

 many to adopt them, who otherwise would never even have 

 heard of them. Farmers would become more and more inter- 

 ested in their vocation and more and more satisfied with it. 

 The moment you bring mind to bear on the toils of the hand, 

 that moment you dignify and ennoble them. Mind is the only 

 thing that distinguishes the toils of man from the toils of the 

 brute, and it is for this reason that those occupations, which 

 neither require nor admit of the exercise of mind and thought, 

 descend in some measure to the level of mere brute force. 

 Let the farmer begin to think and to calculate and to educate 

 himself for his calling, and he will have a-rospect for it which 



