114 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



candid encouragement. All that is recommended for their benefi 

 must be true, and bear out its recommendation in practice. The 

 abominate speculation and mere theory ; and thus those visionar 

 enthusiasts who would raise farming by one grand effort to pei 

 fection, will find them a capital check upon their headlong enthu 

 siasm. 



We will not be understood as condemning the volumes befoi 

 us. On the contrary we give great credit to the state society fc 

 the work. At the same time we unhesitatingly say, that the| 

 contain much that had better been left out, for it has no connei^ 

 tion with agriculture ; and some which had better never bee- 

 written, for it is full of error, and as such renders the authOn 

 and ihe Society liable to censure. The latter appears under tl 

 sanction of science, whilst true science will reject it. 



We think the Society have erred in the choice of men to deliVi 

 the addresses at the annual Fair. Not but they are mtn arapl^ 

 sufficient to do justice to the high claims of agriculture; but it is 

 subject whiih needs not eulogium nor pra.se. These it receiv 

 from all men, and iis highest honoris the prosperity and happine 

 it confers upon a nation. The farmer needs instruction, not ))rais€ 

 and we submit it as our humble opinion that an address filled \\t 

 good practical information — examining briefly the principl 

 of the practice of agticulture, and setting forth inducements to 

 vancement in knowltdge of the art, w ould be vastly more usi 

 to the thousands of heaers, ihan poetic rhapsodies. And in si 

 ing this we are conscious tiiat we do not speak unadvisedly, 

 know it to be the opinion of a large — we might perhaps say — tl 

 largest portion of the fanning community, who aitenjj these Fairi 

 Th(^y are common sense mtn and want to hear common sense. 



We must make an exception here in favor of the hist preside) 

 of the Society, in all whose productions we notice that intima' 

 knowledge of the wants of the farmer, and the capacity to me; 

 them, that makes his writings all assume a liighly practical chara 

 ter. But we would not be called fauli-finders, any farther tli; 

 we deserve it, and in these remarks we feel confident that we a 

 correct. 



Since the state, by legislative aid, came to the rescue, and bcgr 

 to uphold its own true interests, by encouraging the farmer, tl) 

 state and county societies have made rapid advance. Many of tl 



I 



