SOLON ROBINSON, 1841 211 



Now it is on this very account that the friends of the 

 proposed National Society wish to see it established, that 

 the operations thereof may wake up an excitement 

 throughout our "wide scattered population," that shall 

 be the moving cause of changing the "condition of the 

 country." 



It is also argued that the failure of several state and 

 county societies is proof that a national one must fail 

 also. 



Let me ask if this is a valid argument? This short 

 quotation, in my mind, is sufficient to knock the whole 

 force of the argument into nonentity: "Divided and 

 scattered as we are, we spend our forces as it were, drop 

 by drop, whereas union would make us mightier than a 

 torrent." 



The object of all state and county societies has been of 

 a local nature. Their existence has been known only in 

 their own locality, and they have been too weak in num- 

 bers to command legislative aid. Who can tell what 

 would have been the effects if all the members of all the 

 local societies in the Union had been attached to one Na- 

 tional Society? If all the exertions of all these societies, 

 collectively and individually, had been concentrated upon 

 one object, would it not have formed a "torrent" as 

 mighty, comparatively speaking, as the thundering Niag- 

 ara. If the nation, instead of individuals, had received 

 all the light of the intelligent minds that have been de- 

 voted to these local societies, would it now be said "that 

 the public mind was not sufficiently enlightened to ap- 

 preciate the advantages to be derived from a National 

 Society?" If all the money that has been devoted "drop 

 by drop" upon "model farms" and local schools had been 

 concentrated, should we not now have an institution 

 worthy the great country we inhabit? 



If our population is scattered ; if "long distances inter- 

 vene between the most efficient friends of agricultural 

 improvement," so much the more need of forming such a 



