MICHIGAN BTATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 61 



We have thus endeavored, in a cursory manner, to point out 

 the wide difference in attainment and progress heretofore 

 existing between the three great departments of industry. 

 We have also endeavored to exhibit the leading causes for this 

 essential difference. 



Agriculture is, emphatically, a peaceful occupation. It 

 demands social order, with effective and stable laws for pro- 

 tection from aggressive inroads. It requires science to direct, 

 intelligence to guide, industry to accomplish, and a fee simple 

 in the soil for its successful management. And, then, in the 

 wide range of human effort, there is no field of human enter- 

 prise more useful, move honorable, or more promising in 

 results than American farming. The first settlers of the 

 Union were mainly agriculturists, and land tillage has all 

 along been nominally regarded as taking a high rank in the 

 pursuits of our citizens. And yet, until within a few years, 

 what marked improvements were introduced into this system ? 

 What useful inventions to fiicilitate cultivation and to lessen 

 the burden of labor for man and beast, had been regarded by 

 our husbandmen ? What discoveries of science had been 

 generally adopted ? What associations for an interchange of 

 views and a comparison of products were in active operation ? 

 What newspaper, sheet, or periodical, laden with the gleanings 

 of experience and scattering agricultural intelligence, was 

 ever either circulated or read ? What careful examination 

 into the properties of different soils, and their adaptation to 

 the various kinds of grasses and cereals, had ever been prose- 

 cuted to any satisfactory results ? And what intelligent system 

 of rotating crops and recuperating the exhausted energies of 

 the soil by rest and fertilizing ingredients, was received as the 

 basis of operations by any considerable number of our farmers ? 



The truth is, that agriculture, for more than a century, was 

 conducted negligently, shiftlessly, without system, and with- 

 out the requisite amount of intelligence, in every part of our 

 country. The unavoidable result was everywhere experienced. 



