240 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



life with high hopes ;ind :iS{)irations, liis aJvantao-cs for education have been 

 good, and ho has improved them well; is informed in many sciences, — has been 

 a teacher perhaps. He resolves to be a farmer. It is the most independent of 

 all the avocations of life. It is healthful also, and he firmly resolves to pursue 

 tiirough life a path, intellectually, much above that of tiic general class of 

 farmers. He may for a while take the time which is absolutely necessary in 

 order that he may keep even witii the progress of the human intellect in the 

 arts, and sciences, and literature of the day, or that he shall not forget what 

 he did kriow. But as time wears on and he becomes attaciied to his occupation, 

 as he must, if he would succeed and make it a sure means of support, he finds 

 that the farmer's work is never completely done, and his mind never free from 

 the cares of tlie farm. Each day as he returns from his labor, too weary for 

 thought or study, and goes to rest he hopes that soon his cares will lighten, 

 that he may take some thought of subjects outside of those connected with his 

 daily occupation, but as weeks and months pass by without relief he ceases to 

 think of any change. Each returning season brings its labors and cares, which 

 are followed in the same order year after year, his thoughts in one channel, 

 almost as regular as the sun. Is it a wonder that such at the age of forty or 

 forty-five years, when just in the prime of life and manhood, find that instead 

 of having improved their mental faculties as they might have done, do not, in 

 fact, occupy the jilace in society, intellectually, which they did at twenty-five, 

 yet I think facts will verify the assertion as regards the farming class generally. 

 It is only a natural result, when the physical frame is tired and weary, it seeks 

 repose, and the mind with it. 



The exertion, the will, every energy of mind and body, wliich is brought to 

 bear, and which seem absolutely necessary at first, to avert failure, and after- 

 ward to secure a competency, seem often to change radically the whole char- 

 acter of the man. Wlien a competency has been gained, and he has all of the 

 wherewith to help himself which he can desire, he too often has forgotten the 

 text which was well appreciated earlier in life, "'tis mind makes the man," 

 his ambition to rise intellectually has passed away, and he dreads to grapple 

 with ([uestions requiring much mental power. One thing we are not apt to 

 lose, which is the love of gain, which as life wears ou, is likely to possess us, 

 to the exclusion of every noble object, and that which was formerly desired as 

 a means, for the attainment of higher ends in life, become the end and aim of 

 existence. 



It seems that a pro])er development of the mind is incompatible with circum- 

 stances that do not admit of leisure for thougiit and study, and as the farmer 

 necessarily has very little of this, his best efforts to maintain intellectual equal- 

 ity with those more favorably situated are attended with much to discourage. 

 Knowledge is jwwer. Whoever comes in contact or associates with another of 

 superior knowledge feels the degradation incident to every s})ecies of inferi- 

 ority, and to the service of this power have the farming classes of all ages been 

 compelled to submit. In feudal times, five hundred years ago, all learning 

 seems to have been possessed by the clergy and nobles, who had wealth and 

 leisure, but the tillers of the soil, their slaves and vassals, seem to have made 

 little or no pretense to mental culture. Commerce and trade reared a class of 

 merchants and gentlemen with wealth, and consequently the means of im- 

 provement, but tlie farmer from the earliest time until recently, however great 

 may have been the desire, has been deficient in means, for the strife in life for 

 those things which depend upon education. (Society is so constituted that what- 



