THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



29S 



PROGRESS AND IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE; 



A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE BEDFORD 



WORKING men's INSTITUTE 



BY MR, CHARLES HOWARD, OF BIDDENHAM. 



Mr. Howard said :— Perhaps many of the 

 working men I see before me, upon reading the 

 notice for this lecture, may have asked themselves 

 the question — What have we to do with agricul- 

 ture ? I think very much, and that no class of 

 the community has so deep an interest as the 

 working classes in this subject, for this reason: 

 you spend a larger proportion of your income in 

 the purchase of agricultural products than any 

 other class, and, therefore, to you any improve- 

 ments or discoveries, by which more produce is 

 raised from the soil, is a question immediately 

 affecting your interests, as it influences the price 

 of the 4lb. loaf and leg of mutton. The farm- 

 ers are a large class of the community of this 

 country, numbering considerably above a quarter 

 of a million. I am aware you working men 

 have been taught to look upon us as inferior 

 in energy and intelligence to the trading and 

 commercial classes; we have been called chaw- 

 bacons, clod-poles, and our heads said to be 

 as thick as the clods we cultivate, and other polite 

 names ; and only a few weeks since, the editor of 

 one of our newspapers, and designated in some quar- 

 ters the leading paper of the county, having occasion 

 to speak of us, described us as leather-headed; but 

 as that gentleman informs me he contemplates 

 some day becoming a farmer, we shall then have a 

 most brilliant exception. I feel it, therefore, a 

 great comfort, having imdertaken to deliver this 

 lecture, to know that you will not expect much 

 from one of these clod-poles, and, consequently, 

 none of you will go away disappointed. I admit, 

 farmers, as a class, are neither great talkers nor 

 writers, nor do they study to become so; for it has 

 so often occurred that those who have been either 

 the one or the other have been anything but good 

 or successful farmers. It was so with poor Tusser, 

 who wrote some 250 years ago, and it was said of 

 him : — 



"Tusser, they tell me when thou wast alive 

 Though teaching thrift, thyself couldst never 



thrive ; 

 So, like the whetstone, many men are wont 

 To sharpen others when themselves are blunt." 



My business, to-night, is with the working classes; 

 with others I have nothing to do. Many I see 

 here I know full well do not answer to that descrip- 

 tion; and,when I tell them this is the first time I have 

 appeared before an audience for such a purpose, I 

 must ask of them— and I am sure they will grant 

 my request — a lenient criticism. I will not weary 

 you with any further apology for my appearance 

 here this evenihg, but will at once direct your 

 attention to the subject which your worthy Chair- 



man and Committee have requested me to bring 

 before your notice, viz., '' The Progress and 

 Importance of Agriculture." '' Liebig, one of 

 the most eminent men of modern days, has said 

 that there is no profession which can be compared 

 in importance with that of agriculture, for to it 

 belongs the production of food for man and beast; 

 on it depend the development and welfare of the 

 whole human species, the riches of states and all 

 commerce; and there is no other profession in 

 which the application of correct principles is pro- 

 ductive of more beneficial efl^ects, or is of greater 

 and more decided influence. Agriculture was the 

 original occupation of man, and has, throughout 

 all ages, been his chief employment; for ever since 

 the hour when the command was first given to 

 man to till the earth and subdue it, owing to his 

 natural desires and wants it has been a necessity. 

 The first of arts, and now among the noblest of 

 pursuits, it received the earliest attention of man- 

 kind ; and, from that time to the present, it has 

 been improving, and will, doubtless, go on advanc- 

 ing so long as mankind continues to increase. 

 From all history it will be found that wherever it 

 has been encouraged, cities, republics, and empires 

 have risen into greatness ; and where it has been 

 neglected, these mighty states have fallen from 

 their high position." 



From the earliest ages, the cultivation of the soil 

 was man's great dehght; and a desire seems to 

 have been implanted in almost every man's breast 

 to be the occupier of a piece of land; for, now-a- 

 days, there are plenty to be found, particularly of 

 a town population, who think their fortunes are 

 made when they commence farming, but how sadly 

 disappointed many of them have been ! I admit 

 that the pursuit of agriculture is one of the most 

 healthful and delightful occupations; but 1 must 

 inform you, it is not the road to wealth; for, while 

 our brethren engaged in commerce and manu- 

 factures speedily hne their pockets and sump- 

 tuously live, we must be content with a slower 

 process of making money, and more humble fare. 

 But we envy not these gentlemen their riches or 

 their luxuries; give us the sweet green fields to 

 roam in, and a happy home, they are welcome to 

 the riches ofttimes obtained in a murky oflice in a 

 crowded thoroughfare. 



When Adam was expelled from the garden of 

 Eden, where he had been placed to dress and to keep 

 it, the fiat went forth that by the sweat of his brow 

 should he earn his bread, by tilling the ground 

 from whence he was taken ; therefore I may pro- 

 perly call our first parent a farmer ; and so soon 

 as his sons were able to work, the one was a tiller 

 of the ground, and the other a keeper of sheep. 



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