A PLEASANT VISIT TO AN EMINENT FARMER. 231 



lock up the bosom of the earth ; and even this schooling is not long continued, 

 only until they can "read, write and cipher." 



Docs not this explain some tliincs so disreputable to the agricultural commu- 

 nity of this .State ? Look at the Convention now (August) in session at Albany ! 

 How is it composed ? Look at the wlasses represented, and the amount of their 

 productive labor! There are in the State 253,292 as:riciilturisls, 125,000 me- 

 chanics, 13,000 mamifaclvrcm, 20,000 merchants, 3,549 lawyrrs, and 4,610 doc- 

 tors. Now look at the value of their productive industry ! That of Agriculture 

 is SIOS, 000,000 ; of manufactures, $50,000,000 ; of commerce, $24,000,000; the 

 lawyers' income, wliicli must come out o^ somebody, at $G00 each, is $2,129,000 ; 

 the doctors', $2,756,000. Now look at the power in this Convention for fixing 

 the organic law of the State, as exercised by these several classes of society I — 

 Of farmers there are in the Convention 50: of lawyers, 47 ! doctors, 8 ; mechan- 

 ics, 8; merchants, 12. If there be any virtue in the fundamental representative 

 principle of our Government, does it not require that the representative should 

 reflect, as nearly and fully as possible, the interests of tlie mass of his constitu- 

 ents ? — and does anything but the disre]iutable neglect which has attended the 

 education of tiieir sons, who were to follow their fathers' occupation, drive the 

 agricultural community to look, in such great and unreasonable proportion, to 

 other classes and professions, for men to represent them in the creat and respon- 

 sible trust of laio-ma/cin<r I — in delivering lectures at agricultural fairs, and, in 

 lact, on all occasions where there is to be an exhibition, or a communication of 

 anvthing more than the most ordinary intelligence ? This resort to other profes- 

 sions proceeds, it is true, not alu-ays from deficiency of knowledge, or of power 

 to communicate it, but sometimes from an unmanly self-distrust, and disparage- 

 ment of their own profession, or from want of due discrimination between what 

 is really useful and practical, and what is superficial and flowery. 



At a certain meeting of farmers, during the session of the American Institute 

 last autumn, we happened to be present and to witness somewhat indecent im- 

 patience, while a plain farmer of Delaware was "giving in his experience," ev- 

 ery item of which was suggestive of solid information and useful facts, but with- 

 out ornament or flourish. Those who undervalue their own calling and their 

 own associates are not likely to be exalted by others. It 's an old saying, as true 

 as it is trite, that " it 's a dirty bird that fouls its own nest." 



It is not meant, by anything here said, to detract from the legal or other 

 '^learned proressions," since they alone, and jmr excellence, must still be called 

 the learned ; on the contrary, nobody knows better than Nemo that there is some- 

 thing in their training, and course of reading, which enlarges, as all knowledge 

 does, both the understanding and the heart ; and hence has it been that history 

 places high among the great votaries and martyrs of liberty, in all countries, men 

 of the learned professions and of the most finished education ; and that probably 

 not so much from anything peculiar in the nature of these professions themselves, 

 which docs not equally belong to other callings — to Agriculture, to commerce, 

 and to mechanical pursuits — but because those who follow them are the most 

 .earned, and may be expected in their lives to exhibit, especially in all great cri- 

 ses, the truth of the French motto, " /e savoir est puissance," — knowledge is 

 power. Such men will rise to the surface and take the lead — just as, in the 

 prairies, the horse of exceeding strength and spirit takes the lead alike in love 

 and in war I 



It will only be when farmers are equally well educated that their power in 

 the management of public concerns — in which they have, by all odds, the great- 

 est interest — will bear anything like a just proportion to their numbers, to the 

 products of their labor, and to their contributions to the jmblic treasure. If now 

 American farmers were so represented in Congress, how much greater would be 

 their direct influence in public aflairs, and their share of the public patronage ! 

 Under the elTect of better education, their influence would rise like the mercury 

 when the thermometer is pluncred into water at blood-heat. 



The father can so nicely calculate the money value of the son's labor, even by 

 the day and the hour, that he abridijes too much his chances of havin? his mind 

 fairlv opened to the light of science as connected with his calling. He lets him 

 not drink deep enough at the Pierian spring to sret fairly inoculated with the love 

 of knowledge for knowledge's sake. One year more, at that critical season of 



(471) 



