8 INTRODUCTION. 



sionally a small gratuity to encourage the formation and 

 support of State and County Agricultural Societies. 



But while we would not be unmindful of what has hereto- 

 fore been effected, our duty compels us to assert, that much 

 yet remains to be done. A single suggestion for the action 

 of the general government and states, is all that our limits 

 will permit us to make. 



The organization of a National Board of Agriculture, 

 composed of able and intelligent men, expressly selected for 

 this purpose, whose sole duty it should be to collect all infor- 

 mation and statistics on the subject, and arrange and spread 

 them before the people ; to introduce new and valuable 

 foreign plants, adapted to our soil and climate ; suggest 

 improved methods of cultivation ; point out new avenues for 

 the profitable disposal of our surplus products; and recom- 

 mend such laws or their modification, as might best subserve 

 this interest ; in short, who should stand as sentinels and 

 defenders on the watch-tower of this great citadel this is 

 the lofty duty, and should be esteemed the peculiar privilege 

 of American Legislation to accomplish. This was a favorite, 

 yet never a fully digested plan of Washington, the promptings 

 of whose mind, were never followed but for his country's 

 good. 



From the Legislatures of the individual States a less 

 commanding, but not less beneficial duty is required. Re- 

 strictions wisely imposed upon the general government, limit 

 its action to such measures only as are essential to the 

 general welfare, and such as cannot properly be accomplished 

 by any more circumscribed authority. More liberal and 

 enlarged grants from the people, (the only legitimate source 

 of power with the farmers and their fellow citizens of the 

 United States,) give to the State Legislatures, the power of 

 doing all which their constituents choose to have effected for 

 their own benefit. 



Education, in all its branches, is under their exclusive 

 control ; and to endow and foster every institution which hafr 



