Vol. 6. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



69 



Albany, April 22, 1845. 

 Messrs. B. F. Smith & Co. — Gentlhmen : I 

 send you a copy of my report on agriculture, with 

 so much marked out as will bring it, I trust, with- 

 in the moderate limits of the Farmer. If it shall 

 be thought best, the balance of the report, with 

 perhaps some additional remarks, will be published 

 in the succeeding number. 



I have reported a bill to grant $5,000 a year, 

 for three years, to the Fairfield Medical College, 

 provided the trustees shall change the institution 

 into an agricultural school. The buildings, chem- 

 ical apparatus, &c., are well adapted to the object 

 in view. The location is not so favorable as I could 

 wish ; but, with the ice once broken in this matter 

 of agricultural schools, and their practical utility 

 fairly tested, there will be no ditlculty in estab- 

 lishing them wherever they shall be needed. 



— D. LEE. 



T? F P O T?, T 

 OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 

 In Assembly— w'Harc/i 2Qth, 1845. 

 Dr. D. Lee, of Buffalo, from the Committee on 

 Agriculture, to whom was referred so much of the 

 Governor's Message as relates to that subject, 

 reports : 



Speaking of agriculture, the Governor says : 

 *• The interest involved is not merely the most 

 important committed to our charge, but more impor- 

 tant than all others.'" 



This is no more than a just appreciation of that 

 portion of the public interests committed by the 

 House to the charge of your committee. Happy 

 shall we be if any thing v/e can say or do shall serve 

 to lessen the hard work now expended in producmg 

 a pound of wool, a firkin of butter, or a bushel of 

 wheat. 



Agriculture is a subject that public men are far 

 more inclined to praise than to aid by any legislative 

 enactments. However others may regard the inte- 

 rest of rural industry, your committee believe that, 

 while legislating for half a million of farmers, we 

 owe them something more than empty commenda- 

 tion — something hetter than a heartless lip service. 



It IS known to all, that no class in the community 

 give so much muscular toil for $100 as do the com- 

 mon field laborers in the state of New York. The 

 hard work of skilful farmers is bought and sold at 9 

 or 10 dollars a month, and twelve hours toil is cheer- 

 fully performed each day. But the mechanic, the 

 banker, the merchant, the broker, or the professional 

 gentleman, thinks his service very poorly rewarded 

 if he do not receive three or four times that sum. 



If a man whose whole life is devoted to the culti- 

 vation of the earth, does not and cannot earn so 

 much as the merchant, the physician, or the lawyer, 

 in the course of a year, pray tell us what is the 

 cause, of this inability, that wise legislation may re- 

 move it. And if the agriculturist does earn as 

 much as any non-producer in the state, then please 

 inform us how it happens that an experienced farmer 

 must sell his labor at $120 a year, when he cannot 

 hire one experienced in the mysteries of the law or 

 medicine for less than $1,000 a year. 



Surely the toiling husbandman needs, if he does 

 not deserve, as many good meals, as much good clo- 

 thing, and as fine a house, as one that merely stud- 

 ies to acquire, not to produce, the good things of 

 this world. Nevertheless, the fact is notorious, 

 that the great body of our rural population somehow 



contrive to work a little harder and fare a little poor- 

 er than any other class in the community. 



We learn, from reliable statistics, that paupers in- 

 crease among us much faster than population. The 

 number that live from hand to mouth, only one step 

 from the poor-house, is increasing with fearful rapid- 

 ity. There are already more than 500,000 people in 

 this state wholly dependent on their daily labor for 

 their daily bread. 



If the legislature will do as much to instruct the 

 producing classes how to keep and enjoy the entire 

 proceeds of their honest toil, as it does to teach all 

 non-producers how to exchange their shadows for 

 the working-man's substance, nine-tenths of our 

 growing taxes for the support of the poor, and the 

 punishment of crime, will cease for ever. On the 

 contrary, so long as three-fourths of any community 

 give the products of three, four, or six hands for the 

 little earnings of one hand, just so long will hungry 

 mouths, naked backs, and houseless heads, claim as- 

 sistance by a tax on the property of those that are 

 better off. According to the official report, the di- 

 rect tax in this state for the year 1844 was $4,243,- 

 100. This will soon be $8,000,000, unless we cease 

 to manufacture paupers, criminals, and needless lit- 

 igation. 



On what does the productiveness of the farmer's 

 labor mainly depend ? Surely not on his mere mus- 

 cular strength ; for in that case the mechanical 

 power of a cart-horse will exceed five-fold in value 

 the labor of an agriculturist. It is the sound judg- 

 ment, experience, and acquired knowledge of the di- 

 recting mind that imparts productive value to the 

 labor of human hands. And it is mainly because 

 the intellect employed in rural pursuits is less devel- 

 oped than the mind devoted to other and mere pro- 

 fessional occupations, that agricultural labor is so 

 poorly rewarded. The truth is, that pass/re intellec- 

 tual faculties are utterly valueless. They produce 

 nothing. Hence, as the mind of a human being 

 lacks science or knowledge, the market value of his 

 more physical force depreciates in price. Without 

 going into an elaborate argument, your committee 

 appeal to the ten thousand improvements of the age 

 in which we live, as furnishing conclusive evidence 

 that there is no power on earth so productive of 

 ffreat and beneficent results as the power of highly 

 cultivated intellect. 



Those that follow the plow, and swing the axe, 

 and gather the harvest, have not, as a class, been in- 

 structed in the sciences which reveal nature's pro- 

 cess for changing earth, air, and water into bread, 

 meal, and clothing. Hence, to manufacture a bar- 

 rel of pork, of flour, a firkin of butter, or 100 pounds 

 of wool, from the ingredients necessary to form 

 those agricultural staples, the farmer loses one-third 

 or one-half of his labor by its misapplication. To 

 make one ripe wheat plant, nature requres no fewer 

 than fourteen simple and distinct elementary bodies. 

 Each one of these substances has peculiar proper- 

 ties, and not one can serve as a substitute for an- 

 other. 



The laws established by the Creator of the uni- 

 verse, which govern all the changes in the form and 

 properties ol matter, whether in a crude mineral or 

 in an organized condition, making the living tissues 

 of plants and animals, are as uniform and unerring as 

 the laws that regulate the rising and the setting of 

 the sun. By studying the operation of these laws, 

 the practical agriculturist is often able to effect a 

 result in a day, which he could not accomplish in 



