88 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



These expressions and sentiments must be weeded out 

 of every farmer's family. And he who can devise how 

 it shall be done, how to change the public sentiment, so 

 as to make the farmer and the farmer's wife and sons 

 and daughters proud of being such, will be more deserv- 

 ing of the thanks of his country, than he who discovers 

 how to destroy the grain-worm; for of a truth, this is a 

 worm that is eating out the very vitals of community. 

 It is the very cause of all the importations of wheat into 

 the United States, and which have blotted our fair name 

 as an industrious, agricultural nation. The commercial 

 and professional part of society is overburthened with 

 useless drones. The agricultural community are borne 

 down with a consciousness that they are neglected by 

 legislatures, and despised by the butterflies who flutter 

 over them in British broadcloth, consuming the fruits of 

 the sweat of their brows. And the mania that induces 

 farmers to seek to ruin their offspring by seeking to make 

 them genteel, unless soon counteracted, will do more to 

 dissolve this Union, than high tariff and abolition united. 

 An indolent mode of life, or a false pride, that makes a 

 man ashamed to earn his own living with his own hands, 

 is a fountain that will spread more seeds of corruption 

 through the body politic, than all others. 



What then shall we do ? For do we can — Do we must, 

 and let you and I say, do we will. Every thing must 

 have a beginning. Suppose then that we begin with an 

 endeavor to form an 



American Society of Agriculture, 



The leading principle of which shall be to elevate the 

 character and standing of the cultivators of the Ameri- 

 can soil; and whose members shall be pledged to the 

 promotion of domestic industry, and particularly the 

 growth of American wool and silk, by wearing manu- 

 factures of such; and to the promotion of agricultural 

 schools, and the establishment and gratuitous circulation 

 of agricultural papers. 



