AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 39^ 



as for all other things, when it is intended that he who is to follow any particu- 

 lar pursuit shall rise from the level of the operative to that of an intellectual di- 

 rector of the force employed in carrying it on. These evidences of change are 

 to be found, among others, in the more frequent references to the interests of Ag- 

 riculture by our Govcr7iors in their Inaugural Addresses ; almost all of them ap- 

 pearing now to think it incumbent on llicm at least to recognize the existence 

 of such an interest in the State, while it is to be remarked there are yet some 

 of them who deem it not worthy to be referred to — as if the land and the capital 

 embarked in its cultivation were not subjects for legislation, and in no way liable 

 to be affected by good or bad government. We see these signs of favorable 

 change, too, in the appointment, of late years, of Committees of Agriculture, in 

 legislative bodies ; some of whom even go the lengthof making reports— however 

 yet, for the most part, vague and general, and in empty compliment, rather than 

 practical contribution to tliis, by lar the most important in the whole catalogue 

 of legislative cares ; but begetting the hope that, ere long, we shall see Congress 

 and State Legislatures putting forth and circulating Reports — not such as cost 

 $20,000 for diatribes from every conceited scribbler on the potato disease, but 

 elaborate dissertations on the condition and wants of Agriculture, such as we 

 have annually from the ablest minds of the country, selected on that account, and 

 placed on Committees to elucidate the interests of commerce, manufactures, and 

 the condition of the financial and military branches of the Government. And 

 who can hesitate to believe that the country would be as much benefited in its 

 growth and advancement to wealth and power by having its agricultural con- 

 cerns and capabilities thoroughly overhauled and illustrated by such men as 

 Calhoun, and Lewis, and Berkien, and Clayton, and Benton, as by the Reports 

 we have printed and circulated, by the thousand and tens of thousands, in refer- 

 ence to navigation, manufactures, finance, and war ? Ay, and how much better 

 and more generally might we expect the rights of American husbandry to be un- 

 derstood and guarded from the encroachments of parasitical classes, if, under the 

 beneficent influence of such annual expositions by our ablest men — those whose 

 sole business it is — the yeomanry of the country were steadily and systematically 

 educated in all that relates to the cultivation and the rights of the soil, and its 

 claims to precedence in all legislation for particular branches of industry ! But, 

 alas ! what farmer of common observation has not learned that, where the mas- 

 ter is notoriously ignorant or inattentive, he soon becomes the victim of dishon- 

 esty and neglect on the part of his manager and his men ? 



Another indication of an improving public sentiment on this interesting subject, 

 encouraging to the cause itself, and honorable to the discernment and patriotism 

 of the mover, is the following Order, following up a kindred movement some 

 years since by the enlightened Chairman of the Committee to whom this Order 

 was referred in the Senate of Maryland : 



In Senate, January 19, 1847. 



On motion of Mr. Guither, it was 



"Ordered, That the Committeo on Agriculture inquire into the expediency of pro\ading 

 by law for the inspection of guano, and the ap[)ointment of an inspector thereof; and, also, 

 that said Committee take into consideration the best means of diffusing among the people of 

 the State information on the subject of agi-icultural chemistry, and sucli other subjects a« 

 may, in their judraicnt, be best calculated to benefit the agricultural interests of the State, 

 by teaching such knowletlge of the composition and application of manures as will promote 

 die improvement of the exhausted soil of the State ; and that they have leave to report by 

 bill or otherwise." 



And here, again, what a proof is exhibited of the slow progress of knowledge 

 and of discoveries in aid of Agriculture ! Twenty years have elapsed since the 



(8i7, 



