SUMMING UP. 309 



would be farming, instead of living by some profes- 

 sion, and talking as though his auditors did not kno\r 

 wheat from chaff. I regard the Agriculture of this 

 country as very far below the standard which- it 

 should ere this have reached : I hold that the great 

 mass of our cultivators might and should farm better 

 than they do, and that better farming would render 

 their sons better citizens and better men. If a single 

 line of this little work should seem calculated to ca- 

 jole its readers into self-complacency rather than in- 

 struct them, I beg them to believe that their impres- 

 sion wrongs my purpose. 



I am fully aware that others have treated my 

 theme with fuller knowledge and far greater ability 

 than I brought to its discussion. " Then why not 

 leave them the field ?" Simply because, when all 

 have written who can elucidate my theme, at least 

 three-fourths of those who ought to study and ponder 

 it will not have read any treatise whatever upon 

 Agriculture will hardly have yet regarded it as a 

 theme whereon books should be written and read. 

 And, since there may be some who will read this 

 treatise for its writer's sake will read it when they 

 could not be persuaded to do like honor to a more 

 elaborate and erudite work I have written in the 

 hope of arousing in some breasts a spirit of inquiry 

 with regard to Agriculture as an art based on Science 

 a spirit which, having been awakened, will not 

 fall again into torpor, but which will lead on to the 

 perusal and study of profounder and better books. 



