190 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



quently exhibited, and by which it was intended to show to the farmers of the 

 country what they might accomplish in the same way if impelled by a real 

 love of their vocation and a desire for excellence and distinction in the pros- 

 ecution of it ? 



On the whole, unless the mass of the farmers can be prompted to enter more 

 generally the lists of competition — unless we can show increased production by a 

 more and more skillful preparation and application of manure, with other evi- 

 dences of general improvement clearly traceable to a closer study of the princi- 

 ples of Agriculture — and as the fruit produced by these Annual Fairs, where, it 

 may be feared, thousands come now to see, as to any other spectacle, rather than 

 to contribute — may not the question begin to be put, whether we should not strike 

 nearer to the root of the evil or deficiency we would cure, by applying a larger 

 portion of the time and the means which are now applied to getting up specta- 

 cles, rather to the dissemination of knowledge — which, after all is power, and 

 the basis on which 'all hopeful improvement must rest ? General improve- 

 ment in a great branch of national industry, implies influences deeply seated 

 and widely diffused: it implies change and melioration in the system of edu- 

 cation and the habits of thought ; and that is not so easily wroua;ht on men 

 advanced in life, any more than espaliers can be made of old trees. It may 

 well be questioned whether greater good would not be achieved by a pre- 

 mium, for instance, for the best essay on the art and principles of draining 

 land — such an one as Mr. Thomas would write ; or an essay from Downing on 

 rural architecture ; or Audubon on ornithology ; or Doctor Darlington on botany ; 

 or Anderson on hemp ; or Goldsborough on wheat ; or Randall on barley ; or 

 Harris on entomology ; or Seabrook on cotton ; or Pvost on sugar ; or Franklin 

 Minor on practical farming ; or Wilder on horticulture — &c. and causing these to 

 be read in every country school, and in every Farmers' Club, It may be doubted 

 whether such dispositions of the funds at command would not lay the founda- 

 tion of more good than all the premiums that ever were bestowed for large 

 crops, or fat hogs, or cows with three calves ! It is not with the spirit of cu- 

 pidity in the old, but with the love of knowledge in the young, that we must 

 deal. By particular ablution we may wash away the dust or insects from the 

 branches of a tree ; but if you would have it strike deep root and take firm 

 hold of the ground — if you would invigorate its stem and give it fruitfulness 

 and longevity, you must manure and cultivate at the root. So, if we would ac- 

 complish a radical and permanent and Avell-grounded reform in the great indus- 

 trial interests of society, all effectual efforts to do so must be connected with the 

 intellectual cultivation of the rising generations with reference to these particular 

 interests ; and although, as in the case of some accidental influence prejudicial 

 to the fruitfulness of a particular crop, it may be removed, and the crop saved 

 by expedients, yet it would he the bight of folly and empiricism to rely on 

 such expedients for the regular enjoyment of abundant harvests. The juggler 

 may amuse the vulgar by his sleight-of-hand tricks, and fill their minds with 

 amazement and his pockets with their loose change ; but the piiilosopher and 

 the man of sense knows all the while that nothing can break the regular and 

 natural connection between cause and effect, and is eager to see what that connec- 

 tion is in the case before him. A glittering premium may cause any man to stuff 

 his bullock into excessive obesity ; but how much more useful to stimulate some 

 man of science, by high and adequate rewards of profit or of honor, to analyze and 

 explain, for common and universal benefit and information, the properties of the 



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