106 ESSAY ON AGRICULTURAL LIBRARIES. 



Such a library would be useful because, in the second place, hy 

 furnishing the means for reading, it would serve to increase the 

 number of reading men in the agricultural community. It is now 

 too late a day, when so many agricultural newspapers are taken and 

 read, to urge the importance of having all farmers, especially young 

 farmers, well informed on all subjects that come within the sphere 

 of their occupation. The time is fast coming, if it has not already 

 come, when every farmer should be acquainted with something be- 

 yond the practical routine of his own cultivation ; when, to be an 

 intelligent farmer, he should be able to give a reason for this and 

 that process by which he obtains different results ; to understand 

 processes different from his own and to be able to compare them with 

 his own ; and indeed to survey, if not the whole domain of agricul- 

 tural skill in this and in other countries, at least some of the more 

 striking parts of it, and to draw from such a survey useful sugges- 

 tions for his own practice. 



Besides this advantage, the mere exercise of the mental faculties 

 derived from agricultural reading, is of itself almost a sufficient rea- 

 son in its favor. The farmer should keep his mind, as well as his 

 plough, bright by use ; and how can he use it to more profit than 

 by reading the thoughts of those who have written well on subjects 

 connected with his own occupation ? It furnishes not merely an in- 

 nocent, but an intellectual employment for the long winter even- 

 ings, when, if not thus employed, time is too often passed listlessly 

 and unprofitably. What better guaranty can we have than such a 

 library affords, that this Society shall hereafter be able to enlist in 

 its ranks[the services of intelligent farmers to direct its manage- 

 ment and to sustain, by its reports, the fair fame transmitted to it 

 by a Pickering, a Coleman, and otljer well read farmers. 



In the third place, such a library would give permanency, "a 

 local habitation and a name," to much of the agricultural literature 

 of the day, which, however valuable, soon disappears and is almost 

 lost beyond recovery. As an instance in point, it may be stated 

 that the greatest difficulty was recently experienced in procuring a 

 complete set of this Society's Transactions, for the purpose of hav- 

 ing them bound in volumes for the use of the Society. Such a set 

 is now obtained, but the task would be almost hopeless to procure 

 another, pamphlet by pamphlet, one from this source and another 

 from that, without any clue to guide in the search. The volumes of 



