farmers' clubs. 243 



So much for Agricultural and other Fairs — to which we are not to be suspect- 

 ed of entertaining any hostility, for we caused many to be gotten up before some 

 of those, if any there be, who would harbor the mean suspicion, were old enough 

 to know '• a B from a hull's foot." After all, Farmers^ Clubs, instead of being 

 opposed, are cminenlly subsidiary to Annual Fairs ; and those who are impressed, 

 like our correspondent, with a sense of their usefulness and good tendency in an 

 intellectual point of view — the only vicAV in which almost anything is worthy ot 

 regard — will rejoice with us to see how they are extending throughout the coun- 

 try ; so much so that we hope it will not be thought that the space is ill em 

 ployed which is here appropriated, perhaps once for all, to this subject. 



A Farmers' Club, or rather an Agricultural Society which practically assumed 

 the more useful character of a Farmers' Club, has been steadily maintained in 

 Talbot County, Maryland, for now twenty years or more, and its good eft'ects are 

 visible, not only on the face of the country around, but in the fine spirit, intelli- 

 gence and correspondence of those who are connected with it, or who live and 

 practice Agriculture within the sphere of its inliuence ; for in all such cases, 

 though these Associations depend upon a few to form and keep them up, the ben- 

 efits, as respects information and improvements in processes and implements, ac 

 crue to the whole county, and often extend beyond its limits. 



If farmers were half as watchful of their own welfare as other classes are 

 there would not be an election district in any State in the Union without one ol 

 these Clubs ; and all would form a common League for common action when 

 needed. Erratic and desultory as discussions at some of them are apt to be, com- 

 ing at last to no specific resolution, to be published as the result of them, they yet 

 serve to elicit and diffuse much valuable information. 



In the deliberations of these Societies and Institutes, formed by the various 

 trades and pursuits z;i the cities, almost all measures for their peculiar benefit and 

 monopoly, have their origin. They are not content even with collecting libraries, 

 causing lectures to be delivered, holding exhibitions and offering premiums to fur- 

 ther and to illustrate the progress of improvement in their several arts and voca- 

 tions. They go farther : they interpret the wishes, make known the wants, ex- 

 pose the wrongs and vindicate and assert, before the sovereign power of the coun- 

 try, the rights of the entire body for whose benefit, as a class, they have been or- 

 ganized. They constitute, in a word, not mere talking, but active working Socie- 

 ties, bringing their united talents and influence to bear, promptly and efficiently, oa 

 the law-makmg power, for their own peculiar advantages ; while, with shame be 

 it written, farmers are too inert or too timid, to examine, criticise, and boldly ar- 

 raign and denounce, as they should, where needed, all public measures and acts 

 of omisson as well as of commission, on the part of men in authority, calculat- 

 ed injuriously to affect them. Alas ! they seem, in too many cases, to be de- 

 void of the common instinct of self defence. They will scarcely turn when 

 trodden upon. Else how is it that they will submit to go on being taxed, year 

 after year, thousands on thousands, for military schools, maps, charts, surveys, 

 voyages of discovery and journals of travel over sea and land, " mountain and 

 valley ;" and yet not demand one dollar for direct instructioii in Agriculture ! 

 Well we know what the answer will be : We do not choose to be considered 

 ignorant of the fact that voyages of discovery and explorations through unknown 

 regions of land and water 7nai/ open up new sources of trade and commerce ; and 

 so by possibility ultimately benefit Agriculture ; but we hiow that Agriculture 

 •would be very soon, and throughout the whole nation, benefited by schools which 

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