520 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



A long scries of the names of benefactors of the farmer might be given — men 

 who have expended fortunes in experiments, or given the labor of their lives 

 in elevating tlie calling, by studying the improvements found in other coun- 

 tries, and, amid obloquy and ridicule, planting them among their own people. 

 Sir Kichard Weston, who introduced clover into England about 1645, was a 

 diplomatit^t and ambassador of James I to the Elector Palatine. 



John Evelyn, whoso " Sylva" gave a great impetus to rural pursuits among 

 the landed gentry of England, was employed in public service. 



Jethro Tull, who introduced the drill husbandry, was a barrister, yet was 

 the first to recommend and practice horse-hoeing, and that but a century and 

 a half ago. 



Smith, of Deanston, whose system of draining has brought millions to the 

 English agriculturists, was a proprietor of cotton works. 



Arthur Young, who carried on experiments of every kind regardless of ex- 

 pense, " and in tact, by his enthusiasm, outfarmed himself," who saw through 

 his own losses his country's gain, and by his tours through England and 

 Wales and on the continent, and his numerous publications and observations 

 for the general good, conferred a vast benefit upon agricultural interests, " was 

 just the man not to farm profitably," but the very man destined to give more 

 practical and cautious men a sufficient impetus to lift them out of the stagnation 

 in which they had been bred, and in which, Avere it not for the influence of 

 such men, they would ever remain. 



Coke, afterwards earl of Leicester, must conclude our list of the great bene- 

 factors of the farmer and elevators of the agriculturist above the dull, dead level 

 of ancestral routine. Such innovators have almost invariably arisen from out- 

 side the profession, the barrister, the retired manufacturer, the statesman, the 

 nobleman, and the prince having each in turn aided in advancing the cause of 

 improved culture of the soil, in which all have a common interest. The im- 

 provements made by Mr. Coke were extraordinary. By skill, capital, and en- 

 terprise he became the founder of the agriculture of immense estates, which he 

 transformed from blowing sand and flinty gravel to a fertile domain. Tracts 

 that were not worth to a tenant three shillings an acre became under his man- 

 agement, and that of those to whom his judicious leasies gave an enduring 

 interest, capable of producing eighty bushels of barley per acre, which was 

 double the average product of the county of Norfolk, in which his estates lay, 

 and treble that of many counties of the kingdom to this day. 



The names of many others might be added to the above names, that, hy the 

 great example of what they have accomplished, encourage us to have faith in 

 improvements yet to come. These are the genuine heroes, the conquerors of 

 ignorance and prejudice, who have crowned themselves with ennobling honors, 

 heroes whose memory the world should not Avillingly let die. 



No country can boast a greater number of intelligent farmers than can the 

 northern section of the United States ; nowhere else are agricultural period- 

 icals and standard publications more largely patronized ; in no other country 

 are the discoveries and experience of the better-informed, or more skilful, or 

 more curious sooner made available for the benefit of all ; nowhere else exist 

 a people enjoying so free intercourse, or so prone to use the opportunities 

 locomotive and epistolary ; no country exhibits a more varied surface or more 

 varied produce ; in fine, no other people possess more largely all the materials 

 for the promotion and exhibition of an enlightened agriculture ; but though, 

 as farmers, we surpass those of every other country, England and Belgium, 

 perhaps, excepted, we are still very far from possessing that enlightened ac- 

 quaintance with its principles the avocation demands and our opportunities 

 afford. Unfortunately the sum of mental training enjoyed by the sons of 

 fanners is generally but the meagre teaching of the common school, which, 

 though valuable as it is in comparison with that afforded to the people of other 



