FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 4G1 



farmers us Lhorouglily as you would if they were destined for the bar or the 

 pulpit or the medical profession, and they will rank as high in regard to use- 

 fulness, respectability, intelligence and wealth. 



Whatever our labor may be, the more intelligence we can bring to it the less 

 of a drudgery and the more of a pleasure it becomes. The man of thought, of 

 advanced ideas, is always a leader among his class. His intelligent brain directs 

 and controls the labor of other hands and makes that labor more effective than 

 it would be without his guidance. From such a one our young men will not 

 be likely to turn away with contempt for the occupation of farming, to engage 

 in other and what generally prove to be more uncertain occupations. They 

 will be encouraged to stick to the cultivation of the soil with a laudable ambi- 

 tion to become master workmen in their profession, believing that in that, as 

 well as in any other, they can be an honor to their country and ornaments 

 to society. 



Permit me, in this connection, to speak of the sources of education open to 

 those farmers who cannot now avail themselves of the aid of schools or colleges. 

 First among them I would name the agricultural press. Through this 

 agency the opinions and exi^eriences of our most advanced agriculturists in 

 all parts of the world are collected and distributed at a very small cost to all 

 who will receive. What an agency for good the agricultural press would be if 

 the farmers generally took as much interest in a paper devoted to agriculture as 

 they do in papers devoted to politics and general intelligence. 



A paper in order to be largely useful must be liberally sustained ; but unfor- 

 tunately the greater number of farmers do not care to read the current litera- 

 ture of their profession as a doctor or a lawyer cares to read that of theirs. 

 A farmer who lectured at one of our institutes last winter went to work to find 

 what proportion of the families in his neighborhood took an agricultural paper. 

 The neighborhood referred to was in one of the finest counties of the State. 

 He found that not more than one family in twenty took such a paper. Now 

 suppose that only one lawyer in twenty kept himself posted regarding the 

 enactment of new laws, the repeal and amendment of old ones and the decisions 

 of the higher courts, what would be the estimation in which we should hold the 

 profession generally. Suppose that only one physician in twenty kept himself 

 informed in regard to the progress of and discoveries in medical science, what 

 would be the status of the profession, and what would be their competency to 

 practice successfully? Think of a physician to-day treating fevers and some 

 other diseases as they did when we were children, bleeding and dosing with 

 calomel and jalap, forbidding the least drop of cold water while the fever 

 lasted. We know very well now, or at least we think we do, that any one who 

 survived such treatment lived because the fever and the doctor together couldn't 

 kill him, and yet if men in that profession had not investigated and read they 

 would have been in that miserable rut to-day. Do you suppose that a mer- 

 chant would be likely to succeed who subscribed for no bank detector and 

 })rice current, and whose buying and selling was governed by the merest 

 whims? You know he could not succeed, and no more can a farmer in these 

 days of railroads and telegraphs, and sharp competition and progressive intel- 

 ligence afford to allow himself to drag along in the old ruts of the past. We 

 must keep fully abreast of the times in order to prosecute successfully any pro- 

 fession or commercial business or any branch of productive industry. 



One thing which I think has contributed much to hinder the advancement 

 of knowledge in the department of agriculture, and so has been seriously 

 detrimental to its progress, is a lack of sympathy and confidence between 



