ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE. 



have found the means to bestow, since the last war with England, for military 

 uses, includin£f miUtarrj instruction ? — for military surveys, charts, roads, sliips, 

 fortifications — palaces for the well, and hospitals for the sick ? Of all these un- 

 derstand me not as complaining — but why can nothing be done, at the same time, 

 for the arts of peace and the prosperity of peaceful and productive labor ? If no 

 other resource can be found, while so many millions are appropriated for war, 

 and all the science and machinery of war and bloodshed, (being ourselves in no 

 danger of invasion,) why not at least set apart something — the proceeds of the 

 sales of public lands, if nothing else — that the sons of the soil, and those who 

 are to follow Agriculture, and produce for all the very staff of life, may be bet- 

 ter instructed in the use of the plow, and better enabled to conquer the difficul- 

 ties that stand in the way of agricultural prosperity — which is, in fact, but an- 

 other word for the " general welfare." Why, in New- York, in a few years, by 

 a voluntary association of merchants' clerks, and the assistance of their employ- 

 ers, for the benefit of young men brought up to Commerce, a library of 24,000 

 volumes has been amassed. IIow many volumes compose the Farmers' Libra- 

 ries and the Farmers' Clubs? Why, your very premiums, small as ihey are, 

 are given in money ! 



Once more, then, and finally, let me ask who dare say that in agricultural 

 and horticultural improvement the measure is full — that the race has been tun, 

 and the goal reached ? That nothing rernams to be done by individual enter- 

 prise, by associated efforts, or by the action of governments. Slate or Federal ? 

 No ! gentlemen, no ! In some things it may be true that wise policy consists in 

 " masterly inactivity," but not in your pursuit. On the contrary, there is non«» 

 for which the past holds out more encouragement for continued investigation and 

 diligence — no art or science in which what has been done may be considered 

 shorter of what may yet be accomplished — ^none more neglected, if not abused — 

 shall I, dare I add ? — because there is none more undervalued, in proportion to its 

 real importance and its claim on the Government, even hy those ivho fol- 

 lo%v it for their subsistence ! Yes, gentlemen, I dare say that what is now most 

 needed is, not so much how much corn an acre of land may be made to pro- 

 duce — how much milk a cow can be made to yield — how much fat can be accu- 

 mulated on the outside or the inside of a bullock or a hog — all — as well the land 

 as the cow, the bullock and the hog — by high feeding. No ! no ! no ! The great 

 desideratum of American husbandry now is to impress more deeply, and as soon 

 as possible, on the whole community the paramount necessity for such reform of 

 public opinion as shall tend to a higher estimate of the political rights of Agricul- 

 ture as the greatest of all national interests, and to a fonder and juster appreciation 

 of it as a field for intellectual recreation and distinction — one to be, far above all 

 others, regarded in the education of the rising generations, and in the policy and 

 legislation of the country. To this consummation, so devoutly to be wished, let 

 me repeat, I am devoting, in my humble way, through the columns of The Far- 

 mers' Library — a work for which the publishers put at my disposal the best 

 materials, and authorize me to employ the best artists to be found in any coun- 

 try. Hence, too, one prominent feature of that work is to give portraits and me- 

 morials of eminent leaders, not in fields of" blood and carnage," but in agricultu- 

 ral improvement — such men as have been the boast of Massachusetts — Elliott, and 

 Deane, and Pickering, and Lowell, and others, as fast as they can be had, and of 

 their noble compeers in the grain-growing and the plantation States — to the end 

 that, as far as my poor abilities and the support of liberal publishers can contri- 



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