AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 27 



that patriarchal respect lor old custom*? and old usages and old 

 ways must be done away. 



The education and elevation of the farmer is not a Utopian scheme, 

 even for the present 2;eneration. And for the next we may expect 

 men competent to fulfil their destiny as the foundation and support 

 of this republic. England and Germany are in advance of us, but 

 when we move it is with rapid strides. They have laid the foun- 

 dation in their investigation and discovery of the laws of organic 

 life, and we must build upon it. The practical farmer in this 

 country has not been behind the man of science. The latter has 

 but just begun to arouse himself to his duty, as the former is look- 

 ing to him for counsel. Where they occupy the field together, 

 what results may we not anticipate ? It has, perhaps, been to the 

 hindrance of improvement that the scientific men have not taken 

 the lead, and have left practical men to guide themselves in the 

 to them untrodden fields of science. It is that fact that has 

 caused speculation to be substituted for true knowledge, and thus, 

 although a large and extensive desire has been manifested by intel- 

 ligent men to adopt new measures, yet from want ot proper direc- 

 tion, their notions of what they want have often been so indefinite 

 as to lead to no beneficial result. We would not be understood as 

 depreciating the very laudable efforts made for improvement by our 

 agriculturists. On the contrary, we are rather disposed to censure 

 those men, w^io from their studies are capable of giving an intel- 

 ligent direction to that spirit of enterprise which might at this 

 time have effected vastly more than has been done. But neither 

 can go alone. The theories of one and the facts of the other 

 must eventually meet, and thus a firm superstructure maybe raised. 



A few years ago farming was regarded as little better than a 

 menial service, and the farmer Avas looked upon as little elevated 

 above the serf or the slave. It was forgotten that agriculture, 

 the manufacturing and the commercial interests, were all insepara- 

 bly connected in the prosperity of the state; or rather, in the 

 words of another, " that the land and the owners, and the culti- 

 vators of the land, form the primary essentials, and the mercantile 

 and manufacturing establishments, the accidental adjuncts of our 

 state — and that the ruin of the solid walls and foundation of the 

 stupendous fabric of the greatest nation upon earth, would involve 

 in one common destruction its richest appendages and most orna- 



