FAEMEES' INSTITUTES. 237 



ble that our occupation sliould be raised to a more important, honorable, and 

 influential position among the industries and professions of society, if we would 

 see our fields wave with richer harvests, more easily and surely raised, and more 

 cheaply gathered ; our orchards saved from threatened destruction by disease, 

 blight, and destroying insects, and laden with still greater abundance of more 

 delicious fruits ; our flocks and our herds steadily improving, not only becom- 

 ing more beautiful and noble specimens of their kind, but returning a richer 

 reward for better care more intelligently bestowed ; our homes surrounded with 

 greater evidences of thrift and prosperity, and also of culture, refinement and 

 beauty, — the worh is ours. The improvement must commence and be carried 

 forward within our own ranks and bi/ ourselves. The earnest and the active in 

 all other occupations and professions, those who have any footprints along life's 

 pathway', have all they can do in their own chosen life work. To that they give 

 their thought and energy ; so should we to ours. 



While we would never fail to recognize the just importance of all other laud- 

 able pursuits, and respect the rights of those connected therewith, still there 

 should be just so much of business cooperation and combination among farmers 

 as a proper protection and furtherance of their interests require. This properly 

 accomplished and wisely carried out, not fai'mers alone, but society at large, 

 shall reap advantage therefrom. 



But let us not get the idea that the advantages of cooperation among farmers 

 are, or should be, confined to business arrangements alone. Our Agricultural 

 College, and the Board and Faculty connected therewith, need our cooperation, 

 our hearty sympathy, counsel, and support if we would make that institution 

 exceed in usefulness our present most sanguine expectations. 



In every toAvnship there should be some form of organization, either Farmers' 

 Club, Grange, or something of the kind that would bring farmers together for 

 mutual consultation and comparison of views and experience, and where by 

 united effort agricultural libraries could be gathered, lectures given, and discus- 

 sions held upon questions connected with our interests us farmers. For however 

 important cooperation may be in connection with our bijsiness relations with society, 

 it is vastly more important and necessary in connection with the true education 

 of the farmer in all that will ennoble him in manhood and give him a thorough 

 knowledge of those intricate laws of nature by obedience to which we as agricul- 

 turists are to achieve greater success, if it is achieved at all. 



In no question connected with the affairs of this life is the world more inter- 

 ested than in the clieaj) in'oduction of abundance of food and clothing, all the 

 raw material of which comes from the soil. And if ^'he who makes two blades 

 of grass grow where but one grew before is a benefactor of his race," what 

 would be the benefaction if, perhaps with little or no more labor of the hands, 

 but with more of the brain, with the exercise of more knowledge and skill, the 

 farms of Michigan alone should be made to produce two and a half millions of 

 tons of hay, instead of a little less than one and a quarter millions, as shown 

 by the last census ; instead of an average of thirteen and a fraction bushels of 

 wheat to the acre, and thirty-two bushels of corn, those amounts should be, as 

 no doubt they might, doubled or trebled ? And if from our flocks, instead of a 

 yield of about seven and a quarter millions of pounds of wool, there could be 

 shorn ten millions of better quality without an increase of their number. 



There is much to encourage us ; the Avork is begun. We may safely say that 

 more improA-ements in labor-saving farm machinery, in stock of all kinds, and 

 more advancement in the general style and science of agriculture, has been made 



