230 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



views alone will induce us to apply the appropriate remedies, 

 and carry forward a general improvement. 



We find some instances of highly successful farmers, whose 

 fields and crops illustrate most clearly the advantages of apply- 

 ing science to their cultivation ; but we still find, in their neigh- 

 borhood and in striking contrast with them, other farms, whose 

 appearance proves that their owners have taken no pains to 

 avail themselves of the progress of agricultural science. It is 

 true, there is such a thing as poor and unprofitable book-farm- 

 ing. If a man, with no practical experience in farming, who 

 has been brought up in other business, should come into the 

 country and purchase a farm, and, despising the habits, ex- 

 perience, and practical knowledge of his farming neighbors, 

 should undertake to carry on a farm by the directions contained 

 in books and agricultural papers, he would soon find his busi- 

 ness discouraging and unprofitable. But this by no means 

 proves that accurate knowledge, derived from experiments and 

 experimental science, is of no use to the practical farmer. 



The intelligent farmer, in perusing agricultural papers, and 

 treatises upon agricultural subjects, will bring them to the test of 

 his own practical good sense and practical knowledge, and sift out 

 and apply that knowledge which may be sound and useful, and 

 applicable to his own soils and his own circumstances, and 

 reject the remainder. In the present state of the world, it is 

 certainly as absurd and injudicious to reject all agricultural read- 

 ing, as it is blindly to follow the rules and observations laid 

 down in books and agricultural papers. In agriculture, as in 

 all other occupations, we must pay a proper regard to the spirit 

 and improvements of the age in which we live, or our agricul- 

 tural occupations, and those who are employed in them, will 

 fail in securing the respect and consideration they deserve 



It must be admitted that there are defects in the modes in 

 which farming is carried on among us ; and are we not intelli- 

 gent and candid enough to seek and apply the proper remedies 1 

 Why is it that our young men, and young women too, so often 

 express a dissatisfaction with their home employments and con- 

 dition ? Is not the reason, at least in part, to be found in our 

 own course of life 1 How can their fathers expect that their 



