FARMERS' INSTITUTES. '^39 



day of last June we plowed it, seven inches deep, laying it over in good style, 

 immediately harrowing until well pulverized and planted as on ordinary land, 

 on the fourth of June, in rows four feet apart, and the hills eighteen inches 

 apart in the row. Tliey required but little attention, as few weed grew, until 

 the pulliiig time. They required one Aveek more time to ripen than on the 

 adjacent upland. Experts could not tell which was best crop, upland or marsh, 

 "both alike good ;" twenty bushels per acre. 



In respect to cost of ini})roving waste places, we will say but a w'ord ; time 

 forbids. But on two occasions we have known the first crop to refund the en- 

 tire expense. On other occasions we have seen two or three crops fail in re- 

 turning the money expended. We have theorized enough. Theory is not 

 worth much. It is cheap. It can be bought of every town or country editor 

 "by the yard. Improving waste places is pretty much all theory if we take them 

 for it, and without many hard knocks. But truly hard knocks accomplish 

 the work. Yet, best of all friends, is the satisfaction of knowing that the 

 country is tjie better for our toil; more beautiful, more healthy, and more pro- 

 ductive. 



Mr. James llarger, of Marion, read the following essay on the 



EDUCATION OF THE FARMER. 



If "mind makes the man," and this alone makes hiiu different from other 

 animals, it seems but rational tliat he should desire to improve this quality to 

 the highest degree. To the cultured mind, the thought of mere brute existence 

 is repugnant, while to the uneducated, sensual pleasures, — to eat, to sleep, to 

 exist without bodily pain, often seem all-satisfying. Besides the desire and 

 determination which should exist in the mind of every member of a civilized 

 community to stand as man, higli above the brute, adorning his position, there 

 is in most men a love of approbation or ambition, which stimulates to improve- 

 ment. Few persons like to be thought inferior to those of the same class that 

 immediately surround them. 



The professional classes, like the teacher, the lawyer, or the physician, whose 

 stock in trade is the knowledge they possess in reference to their special call- 

 ing, and whose associates are people of education, have everything to stimulate 

 them to activity of mind. It is an old saying that "'tis better to be a king 

 among fools than to be a fool among kings," so that the person wiio attempts to 

 stand with those of the learned professions without the learning and knowl- 

 edge and culture usual to tiiose of his calling is a disgrace to his profession and 

 a by-word among men. 



But the farmer, the man wlio maintains himself by tilling the soil, is very 

 differently situated. Among his fellow farmers, indeed, among all classes it is 

 generally agreed that to till the soil with success and profit does not require a 

 highly cultivated mind. A strong frame and a willing hand with, common 

 sense and practice, are regarded as the especial requisites of a farmer. 



However this may be, whetlier these qualities are in fact all that is needful 

 in conducting the operation of farming successfully, or whether a scientific 

 knowledge of the why and the wherefore of every act in cultivating the soil 

 would give tlie possessor of this knowledge advantages commensurate with its 

 acquisition, or as we say, that "will pay." One thing seems evident, which is 

 that farming as commonly [)racticed tends to a dislike for study and tliought, — 

 indispensable requisites for the improvement of the mind. A person starts in 



