204 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



of support. As agriculture has to take these broken parts 

 of lives, statistics of our courts and charities show to the 

 disadvantage of agriculture. It is not the source legiti- 

 niately from which our almshouses and penitentiaries are 

 filled. Agriculture is entitled to all the relief it can gain in 

 this direction. Society is bound together by inextricable 

 ties that cannot be broken or dissolved without general loss. 

 The success of manufacturers does make a market for the 

 farmer, who also enjoys benefits of cheaper and better goods, 

 if real and not shoddy. Wise, honest judges, pure, faithful 

 clergy, and skil'fal physicians are needed by the farmers as 

 much as by any other class, and they should rejoice in the suc- 

 cess of those institutions designed for their education. An 

 honest merchant to buy and sell is an essential part of any 

 community; skilled artisans, with trained arms to execute, 

 and educated brains to plan machinery and bring under con- 

 trol the natural powers of mechanics, are a blessing to agri- 

 culture. And in squaring accounts with other callings, are 

 they not still more dependent upon agriculture? 



Agriculture provides for the world not only the most 

 necessary products but the most perishable, and the most 

 susceptible to bad influences ; requiring for their perfection, 

 the nicest care and the most intelligent skill ; a forethought not 

 less than that of the builder who constructs a ship. All classes 

 ask for the best products of the garden, the orchard and the 

 dairy. The farmer is expected to pay without haggling the 

 bills of the lawyer and the doctor, and the salary of the 

 clergyman, and for the goods of the merchant. Why should 

 he alone be expected to take what he can get? This is not 

 a matter to be helped by legislation ; but let the present 

 growth of cities continue for another decade, at the expense 

 of the country, how can it be otherwise than that the farmer, 

 holding in his hands the daily supply of food, will be 

 acknowledged as master of the situation, as the most impor- 

 tant factor in our national life and prosperity? Everything 

 that can be done by legislation for agriculture, is as much or 

 more for the benefit of the rest of the community than that 

 of the farmer ; for " the king himself is served of the field." 



The farmer can raise better crops, provide better vegetable 

 and animal food, when skill and education give him ability 



