NORFOLK SOCIETY. 311 



worthy of all suitable encouragement. But it is often wholly 

 unsuited to the habits and wants of the American farmer, and 

 ought not, we maintain, to displace or discourage the employ- 

 ment of our native population. Further, the evil results, we 

 believe, in a great measure arise from the want of any general 

 means of thorough scientific and practical education of young 

 men in the art of husbandry. 



It will probably astonish the agricultural community, as it 

 has astonished your committee, in the course of their investiga- 

 tions, to learn how large a part of the annual returns, which 

 our farmers may reasonably expect to receive, is lost, through 

 the unskilfulness or unfaithfulness — or both — of the laborers 

 they are now compelled to employ. The products of any given 

 acre of ground will be materially lessened by want of proper 

 care, skill, or faithfulness in the ploughman or cultivator. 

 The returns of the dairy will be as largely diminished by simi- 

 lar deficiency in the milker of the cows, or in the keeper of the 

 milk and maker of the butter. The entire loss of many valua- 

 ble animals, and much unjust reproach of the seller of them, 

 may be traced directly to the same causes. The necessary op- 

 erations of the whole farm will be greatly impeded, and often 

 ultimately lost, by the heedless abstraction from the farmer, of 

 but one- half hour of ordinary working time every day. The 

 whole comfort and happiness, as well as the moral character 

 and improvement, of both the farmer and his help, will be most 

 decidedly affected by the relative position maintained between 

 them ; by the absence of any cause of censure or reproof on 

 the one part, and of excited or revengeful feelings on the other. 

 In short, the order, industry, cheerfulness, and contentment, 

 which are visible upon a farm, and the attendant rewards of 

 skilful, exact, and faithful labor, will invite and encourage those 

 who contemplate the pursuit of farming for a livelihood ; and of 

 those, also, who desire it for a pleasant occupation, on their re- 

 tirement from professional or mercantile employments. While 

 the opposite appearances will, in the same measure, repel and 

 disgust both. 



In proof of the probable loss to the farmer, by the causes to 

 which we have alluded, we present an imaginary case, which 



