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of life ; as fitting us to be more useful and to do more good to 

 our fellow-beings than by any other means we can adopt ; 

 as enabling us to use to the best advantage the power which 

 God has furnished of providing for ourselves and those depen- 

 dent on us ; as increasing our self-respect, and saving men 

 from low pleasures and pursuits ; and as securing a position of 

 respectability and influence in society, — education, in the best and 

 most enlarged sense of the term, cannot be too much regarded 

 by the rural and laboring classes. There is indeed no reason 

 and no hindrance in the way, why our farmers and their chil- 

 dren should not be among the best-informed persons in the 

 community. 



But knowledge has a specific value to farmers in respect to 

 the improvement of their art. 



It is too late in the day to decry the value of science in agri- 

 culture. Who can name an art, or trade, or business, in which 

 knowledge is a disadvantage or a prejudice to success ; or in 

 which indeed it is not a substantial help? Who are the men, 

 who best succeed in life ; the ignoramuses, the blockheads, the 

 dunces, or the intelligent, the inquisitive, the observing, the 

 experienced ? Why should agriculture, combining as it does so 

 many occasions and opportunities for the application of skill 

 and knowledge, be an exception to every other art and busi- 

 ness ? But it is said that agriculture is altogether matter of ex- 

 periment ! Who then are so well qualified to make, to observe, 

 and to report these experiments, as men of disciplined and en- 

 lightened minds ? 



All the great improvements which have been made in agricul- 

 ture here or abroad have been made by men of intelligence, in- 

 quiry, education and science. The present improved structure 

 of the plough, the great instrument of the farmer, so infinitely 

 superior to the implement of former times, and by which the 

 power of draft required in its operation is reduced in many cases 

 more than fifty per cent from what was formerly demanded, is 

 the result of of a profound application of mechanical science to 

 the construction of the mould-board and the general manufac- 

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