SOLON ROBINSON, 1838 87 



A Proposition, to Facilitate Agricultural 

 Improvement. 1 



[Albany Cultivator, 5:60-61; May, 1838 2 ] 



Lake C. H. la. 4th March, 1838. 



J. Buel, — Dear Sir, — What can, what must, what 

 SHALL WE DO, to elevate the standing of the cultivators 

 of the soil? There is "something rotten in Denmark," 

 that needs all the energy of all the friends of agricul- 

 ture, to eradicate from the community. A false pride 

 pervades the land, and a false estimate is placed upon 

 the value of that class of community, who are the very 

 creators of, not only all wealth, but are the very basis 

 and only foundation of all real wealth. What shall we do 

 to bring about that happy state of society, that once per- 

 vaded the Roman empire, when he who cultivated the 

 soil took the first rank among all trades and occupations ? 

 One of the very best things that the friends of this whole 

 country can do, is to make the science of agriculture take 

 that rank that shall induce merchants and professional 

 men to seek to make their sons farmers, instead of that 

 worst of all manias that now pervades the farming com- 

 munity, and which induces the annual ruin of thousands 

 of young men, by seeking to be what nature never in- 

 tended them for. 



"Willie is so weakly we must make a doctor of him." 

 "And John has such a faculty for trade, that his father 

 intends to set him up. Besides you know, since he came 

 home from school, he can't bear to go to work on the 

 farm; and you know it 'ant so genteel as a merchant." 



J With this article Robinson began his famous crusade for a 

 National Society of Agriculture, which resulted three and a half 

 years later in the formation of such an organization at Washing- 

 ton, D. C Although this society was short lived, chiefly because 

 of failure to obtain for agriculture the Smithsonian bequest, it set 

 forces in motion which culminated in the establishment of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture in 1862. 



'Reprinted in Daily Cincinnati Gazette, September 18, 1838; also 

 in part in Franklin Farmer, 1:305 (June 2, 1838). 



8—60109 



