A THIRST FOE KNOWLEDGE. 149 



v^_ 



the climate and locality, or even entirely spurious, wholly 

 untrue to name. 



Another species of sharpers are the various so-called 

 agents, who are traveling over the country purporting to 

 have bought goods at bankrupt sales, which goods they pro 

 fess to sell at merely nominal prices. Still another stripe 

 of these precious scamps are the swindlers in our cities who 

 flood the country with circulars, proposing to sell tickets at 

 from twenty-five cents to one dollar each, entitling the 

 holder to select from a stock of goods to an amount many 

 times their value. 



These, then, are some of the objects for which the Order 

 of Patrons of Husbandry was organized, namely, to abolish, 

 through the social and intellectual elevation of the mem 

 bers, the nefarious practices of unscrupulous sharpers, who 

 constantly prey upon those who, thrown seldom into contact 

 with the world, have not the means of discerning the lurk 

 ing swindle beneath. 



A THIRST FOE KNOWLEDGE. 



As the farmer gains information, he sees the necessity of 

 supplementing his own empirical attainments with the 

 knowledge richly stored in the books and journals devoted 

 to his especial interests, of which heretofore by far too little 

 use has been made, and which should be to the agriculturist 

 what the technical books and journals are to the other several 

 classes that compose a civilized nation. If the farmer ig 

 nores these means, he must continue not only to be the prey 

 of sharpers and confidence men, but, in a great degree, to be 

 worsted in the every-day transactions of legitimate busi 

 ness ; for it is human nature to make money wherever one 

 can, and in this the farmer is not different from other men. 



