706 



F AIMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 12 



and, generally, noihing more is wanting, lo prove 

 to theni that they can do good gervice in this way 

 to agriculture, and with credit to themselves. Let 

 these reporls, which would be presented as claims 

 for admission, be always plain, simple and short ; 

 and in manner and form not beyond the imitation 

 of any plain practical farmer. It would also be 

 proper to require afterwards of each member, a 

 small but certain amount of loorking service eve- 

 ry year — as for example, the making and report- 

 ing of one or more experiments on some doubtful 

 point in farming, or in any art or science connect- 

 ed Avith agricultural improvement. I do not mean 

 to discourage the more general, speculative, and 

 argumentative essays which have heretofore 

 formed nearly all the communications to agricul- 

 tural societies: but these might be safely left to 

 be performed as voluntary duties. 



"It may be objected that but few members 

 would be obtained if such preliminary and regular 

 duties were required. I think otherwise. Very 

 few would object to write in the manner proposed, 

 if it woe made a duty, instead of being altogether 

 voluntary, and if the performance was required of 

 nil without exception. But even if only ten mem- 

 bers should unite on these terms, they would be 

 more useful, and do more credit to themselves, 

 than they could with one hundred more upon the 

 ordinary plan. 



" II. Let the duties of officers be so fixed and 

 defined, as that the performance should be as little 

 as possible affected by their individual characters 

 and habits; and, by a fixed rule, require rotation in 

 office, so that no officer shall serve two years in 

 succession. Almost any member, who has zeal 

 and activity, may fill well any office in a society — 

 and a year's service would be sufficient to show 

 in any a deficiency in those indispensable quali- 

 fications. 



" If societies on something like this general 

 plan were spread through Virginia, incalculable 

 benefit to agriculture would be derived from thus 

 instituting, accurately observing, reporting, and 

 publishing hundreds of experiments, and ascer- 

 taining numerous important farts, which can be 

 made known in no other way. If only twenty in- 

 dividuals, composing a society, would make so 

 small a sacrifice as the duties would require, in as 

 many as twenty different counties, and means 

 were adopted to interchange communications, the 

 result would be that each member would have 

 the benefit of the labor of four hundred experi- 

 menters and recorders of agricultural facts, or sci- 

 entific observations. Is not this an object worth 

 seeking, and worth toorking to obtain? But if 

 the plan was properly estimated, there might be 

 ten thousand persons so operating, and they, and 

 all the farmers of the commonwealth, enjoying 

 all the benefit to be derived from combining all 

 these many exertions of labor and intellect." 



It may, at first, be deemed inconsistent with the 

 previous expressions of general condemnation, 

 that we should yet recommend agricultural socie- 

 ties as among the most effective means to improve 

 agriculture. But it would be only upon a regular, 

 uniform, and altogether different organization. 

 The devising a proper plan of organization and of 

 operation, sliould be one of the earliest and most 

 useful labors of a board of agriculture ; and the 

 conforming to tliat plan should be the condition 

 required for directing to each society a proporfion 

 of the state's bounty for this purpose. 



[ Whatever might be the details of the plan, the 

 operation and eflect should be to induce some ac- 

 tion, however small, by every member of every 

 society, in learning and establishing agricultural 

 facts by practical and careful experimenting, and in 

 accurately reporting the results. There would be 

 enough subjects of labor for all — from the philo- 

 sophical chemist, operating solely in his labora- 

 tory, to the plain and even unlettered but judici- 

 ous and sensible cultivator of the soil. The con- 

 tributions to knowledge, which, in this manner, 

 would be brought by the members of a single 

 county society, would be very valuable to them- 

 selves and to the public, however small and ap- 

 parently trifling each individual contribution 

 might be. And when all the separate gatherings 

 offiftyora hundred county societies were brought 

 together, by a state society, or the board of agri- 

 culture, and digested and put in form for general 

 use, the amouni of knowledge and of profit thus 

 gained, in the course of a few years, would be be- 

 yond calculation. 



The great advantage of thus operating througli 

 county agricultural societies, would be found in 

 enlisting the aid of the labor and money of indivi- 

 duals to a very far greater amount than the trea- 

 sury would, or could, alone pay for ; even if pay- 

 ing money were sufficient to purchase talent and 

 zeal. If the slate were to offer ^100, or even but 

 %bQ a year, to every county society which should 

 contribute at least as much money, and in other 

 respects would conform to the prescribed general 

 plan of organization and procedure, it is likely 

 that even that small encouragement would induce 

 the formation of many societies, which would ul- 

 timately contribute ten times as much in money 

 as they received from the treasury, besides their 

 far more valuable exertions of labor and talent. 

 To give more prominence, dignity, and effect, to 

 the societies, they should by delegates meet annu- 

 ally in a general state society; and perhaps it 

 might also be advisable to give that society more 

 or lees agency in filling the Board of Agriculture. 



Agricultural Surveys 



Would be excellent adjunct and co-operative 

 means with properly organized agricultural socie- 

 ties, to aid the improvement of^ agriculture ; or, 

 they would well serve as substitutes for the socie- 

 ties before the latter are established, and encou- 

 ragers and stimulants to them afterwards. Though 

 proceeding by different modes, the proper end 

 and objects of both surveys and societies are the 

 same, viz : to gather together all the facte as to 

 the existing state of agriculture, so as to inform 

 the whole agricultural community of each useful 

 particular practice, which is now known only in a 

 small neighborhood, and to a few farmers. If this 

 alone were effected, this general diffusion of the 

 knowledge of the now existing but generally un- 

 known improvements, and good particular prac- 

 tices in various parts of Virginia, would add at 

 once many thousands of dollars of value to agri- 

 cultural wealth in general throughout the state ; 

 which new value, would probably add immediate- 

 ly as much to the annual pecuniary profits of agri- 

 culture as would pay the annual expense of an 

 agricultural survey, for as long as it should con- 

 tinue, and for as much cost of other aids to agri- 

 culture continued afterwards. 

 The great work of improvement effected by the 



