Vol. C. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



71 



If it cost the farmers of New York twice as much 

 land and labor to produce a bu?hel of grain as it does 

 their ccmpetitois out of the state, how are the cul- 

 tivators of the earth among us to prosper ? 



AH the farmers in the Empire State should rise as 

 one man, and insist that the science of keeping pro- 

 perty, and the science of good husbandry, shall be 

 taught in all their common schools. 



The same mental cultivation which will enable an 

 honest tiller of the soil to double the products, and 

 doable the value of his better-directed industry, will 

 also qualify him to keep and enjoy a much larger por- 

 tion of the nett proceeds of his labor. 



It is now twenty -six years since the friends of 

 agricultural improvement first made a vigorous ef- 

 fort to establish an agricultural college in this state. 

 Your committee have before them an essay publish- 

 ed in this city in 1819, of forty-two pages, advoca- 

 ting such an institution with unanswerable argu- 

 ments. 



At a latter period the lamented Judge Buel suc- 

 ceded in procuring a naked charter for such a school; 

 but not a single dollar could be obtained to aid pri- 

 vate enterprise in teaching the unerring laws of na- 

 ture to the young men v/ho are to pursue the mod- 

 ern art of transforming solid rocks into fertile 

 soils, and these, again, into human food and rai- 

 ment. 



Wise legislators conferred unlimited authority on 

 a few Canal Commissioners to expend indefinite mil- 

 lions in cutting and beautifying inanimate stone along 

 the line of the enlarged canal : but the law-making 

 power refused to grant one dollar to teach the sci- 

 ence of rural economy to the sons and daughters of 

 practical farmers. Within the last twenty-six 

 years there has been taken from the public treasury 

 about ^200,000 to prepare the candidates for legal 

 honors to study successfully the science of law. We 

 have also four well-endowed medical colleges, now 

 drawing from the public funds $5,500 a year, besides 

 $200,000 before received. 



We have so long paid a large bounty on al' 

 branches of unproductive industry, that no young 

 man, of any honorable ambition, will consent to toil 

 and sweat, and burn in the sun on a farm, for $10 a 

 month, when, as a clerk in a store, a bank, or a bro- 

 ker's office, or as a student in the doctor's or law- 

 yer's office, he can expect, in the course of twenty 

 years, to command five dollars to one, and at one- 

 fifth of the severe bodily labor exacted of the prac- 

 tical agridulturist. But can all our ambitious young 

 men become professional gentlemen, without render- 

 ing these professional pursuits utterly valueless ? 

 If learning and science are the great highways to 

 honorable distinction and public favor, why deny 

 these advantages to those that do more than all 

 others to feed and clothe the whole community ? 



It is true that science is the greatest leveler in the 

 world : but, unlike the leveling of ignorance and 

 brute force, it ever levels upward. It takes the 

 highest point of mental attainment already achiev- 

 ed for its standard ; and then, wisely and humane- 

 ly attempts to elevate all below up to that 

 standard. 



The object of this efTort is to make the triumph 

 of mind over mattet universal and complete. All 

 men blessed with a common share of common sense 

 should have, in their cvery-day business operations, 

 the full benefit of the best lights of modern science. 

 Science gives to the poor man unknown and ever- 

 in";reasing power over heat, light, electricity, chem- 



ical attraction, air, water, and the solid substances 

 which form the surface of the globe. 



All these elements are brougiit into requisition by 

 nature, in changing crude mineral matter into living 

 organized beings — into the cultivated plants and do- 

 mestic animals produced by the labor of the husband- 

 man. To increase the knowledge of the producing 

 classes does not detract, in the least, from the at- 

 tainments of any class that may stand, or think they 

 stand, above the common average of the community 

 in which they live. 



Why shall we refuse to do as much to make skill- 

 ful and scientific farmers as we do to make skillful 

 doctors and lawyers ? 



There are 11,000,000 acres under cultivation in 

 this state, yielding an average product worth $7 per 

 acre. Communicate to the half-million of men who 

 cultivate these lands a knowledge of the laws of na- 

 ture which govern all the results of rural industry, 

 and instead of exhausting the soil of its bread-form- 

 ing elements at the rate of millions a year, they will 

 improve the land and harvest, at the same cost in 

 labor, three dollars per acre more than they now 

 do. This will add to the productive value of our 

 agricultural industry $ 33,000,000 a year, and to 

 the revenue of our canals more than one million 

 of dollars : for a large portion of this will go to 

 the cities on the sea-board, and be paid for in goods 

 to be returned through our canals to the consu- 

 mers. Thus the property dug from the earth will 

 contribute a double toll to the state. 



Who cannot see that commerce, manufactures, 

 and all other pursuits in civilized society will be 

 largely benefited by increasing the productiveness 

 of rural labor ? Hence whatever we give to ag- 

 riculture is truly given to all classes. By unwise 

 cultivation, we have all consumed much of the 

 constituents of human food and clothing that a 

 a bountiful Providence spread over the virgin earth 

 in the Empire State. Science now comes to our 

 aid, and teaches us how to change a cold, com- 

 pact subsoil, into a loose, friable, and most produc- 

 tive surface soil. It reveals to us ivhy it is that 

 a good soil will produce 100 pounds oi" ripe wheat 

 plants, and yet lose only 15 pounds of its weight 

 and substance bj^ the operation, eighty-five pounds 

 coming from the atmosphere. 



Very fine Hogs. — A, Russell, Esq. of Deerfield, 

 Mass., in a communication to the editor of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Ploughman, says, he fatted and killed 

 a pig 11 months and 6 days old, that weighed 532 

 lbs. Respecting the best mode of feeding hogs, he 

 says, '^ I fed him for the last six months entirely on 

 c(n-n ground in the ear, and wet. This was the 

 largest hog ever killed of his age. I have tried va- 

 rious ways in feeding, and I have had the best luck 

 in giving mixed ground feed, in the cold part of the 

 year ; wet it with warm liquor, and give it soon af- 

 ter it is mixed — always keeping a clean trough and a 

 dry place for them to lie in. 



It would seem that old Deerfield will soon stand 

 at the head of the list for fat hogs : as it has long 

 been head and horns, above all other towns for fat 

 cattle. Mr. R, says, "Ten of my townsmen have 

 handed me a list of the weight of 12 hogs that they 

 have killed for their own use this winter, which beats 

 the Connecticut hogs mentioned in the Hartford pa- 

 per. Whole weight is 6,698 ; average, 558 ; the 

 largest was 661, the smallest, 503 ; the oldest 20 

 months ; the youngest, 14 months." 



