184'5. 



GEi\Ej5EE FARMER. 



231 



honest politician is to be respected, while the 

 mere party brawler is to be despised. Parties 

 in this country, where they stand as the embodi- 

 ment and representative of principle, are not only 

 necessary but useful ; but when they become the 

 instruments used to elevate men, and to secure 

 office, without regard to measures, they cease to 

 be useful and become pernicious. This subject 

 I regard as vastly important, and one which de- 

 serves the candid and thoughtful attention of the 

 farmers of this country — their riglits and inter- 

 ests are intimately connected with it, and it may 

 well claim our notice in another number. 



D. A. Ogden. 

 Pen Yan, Sept., 1846. 



National Importance of Agriculture. 



Mr. Editor : — There is no business of lifo 

 which conduces so highly to national prosperity, 

 to general and individual happiness, as the culti- 

 vation of the soil. It is truly our nursing moth- 

 er, which gives growth and wealth, and moral 

 and physical health to our country. It may be 

 considered the great wheel which moves all the 

 machinery of society, and that whatever gives to 

 this a new impulse or energy communicates a 

 corresponding impetus to the thousand minor 

 wheels of interest which it ju'opels or regulates. 

 Providence seems wisely to have ordained that, 

 because this is t!ie most necessary employment 

 towards the subsistence and comfort of the hu- 

 man family, its labors shall receive the highest 

 and most substantial reward. While the other 

 classes of society are directly dependent on ag- 

 ricltuure for a regular and sufficient supply of 

 the means of subsistence, the agriculturist is en- 

 abled to supply all the absolute wants of life from 

 his own labors, though he derives most of his 

 pleasures and profits fiom an interchange of the 

 products of labor with the other classes of soci- 

 e'}'. Agriculture has been called the parent of 

 arts, not only because it preceded all others, 

 but because the other arts are its legitimate off- 

 spring, and cannot continue long to exist with- 

 out it. It is the great business of civilized life, 

 and gives employment to a vast majority of every 

 people. 



The substantial prosperity of a country is al- 

 ways in projiortion to its agricultural wealth and 

 industry. Commerce and manufactures may 

 give temporary consequence to a State, but these 

 are always a precarious dependence. Venice, 

 Genoa, Portugal, Spain, each rose to wealth and 

 power from commercial enterprise. But they 

 all now exhibit melancholy evidence of f;\llen 

 greatness. Their population degenerated under 

 the enervating influence of commercial wealth, 

 and having no suitable agricultural basis to rest 

 upon, they have fallen in succession from tlieir 

 high standing, victims to the more robust ener- 

 gies of rival powers, or to the enervating influ- 

 ence of private cabals. The Spanish South 



American Colonies, in visionary anticipations of 

 golden wealth, overlooked the teeming riches of 

 their soil, and now present a melancholy picture 

 of mental imbecility and political degradation. — 

 They exhibit nothing now in their political or 

 social institutions — in their agriculture or in the 

 condition of their population, that can be admii-ed 

 or coveted by the freemen of America. 



A city may flourish by foreign commerce, by 

 becoming the carrier of other nations, till for- 

 eign aggression or foreign rivalship or the open- 

 ing of new channels of commerce, (contingen- 

 cies of no unfrequent occurrence,) consign it, 

 like Persepolis, Petra, Tyre, and other ancient 

 cities of the east, to ruin and oblivion. A coun- 

 try can be long prosperous and truly independent 

 only when it is sustained by agricultural intelli- 

 gence and agricultural industry. Its foreign 

 commerce may be swept from the ocean — i'3 

 manufactures may perish — yet still, if its soil is 

 tilled and well tilled, it can be made to yield all 

 the absolute necessaries of life — it can, when 

 misfortunes abate, like the roots of a trunkless 

 tree send forth a new stem, new branches, new 

 foliage, and new fruit — it can rear again the 

 edifice of the manufacturers, and spread again 

 the sails of commerce — and it will yet retain the 

 germ and the spirit of independence. 



The preceding observations will show the im- 

 portance of agriculture to a Nation in sustaining 

 its prosperity and independence, and in supply- 

 ing the wants, and multiplying the comforts, of 

 its population. The same reasoning that applies 

 to a nation applies to a State, a country, a town, 

 a neighborhood, or- an individual. Agriculture 

 constitutes the basis of their prosperity, directly 

 or remotely, and the blessings which it confers 

 are always in the ratio of the intelligence, skill, 

 and industry which control its operations. 



Is there an individual, then, who cannot see 

 and appreciate the advantages to society from a 

 high state of agricultural im})rovement ? Is 

 there one who does not see personal interest pro- 

 moted by this certain influx of wealth, drawn 

 from the soil prolific in the bounties and bless- 

 ings of a wise and beneficent Creator '? He has 

 s])read everywhere the means to make man wise 

 and happy. He has given him the capacity to 

 apply these means to his own good. He has 

 commanded him to bring his capacities into con- 

 stant and active exercise, and he hfis promised 

 to reward, and he will reward all who prove 

 faithful to the command. W. S. 



Wheatland, N. Y., 1846. 



Note.— On page 224 of this number, speaking of the use 

 of wood ashes and common salt it is remarked : " We are 

 anxious too see a cotnpound of equal parts of common salt 

 and wood ashes, applied at the rat.^. of from ten to twenty 

 Imshels per acre, this fall soon after seeding.' 

 In the li:iste of writing, the above was not well considered. 

 VlihoiK'h so much as ten bushels of salt per acre will do no 

 harm —40 being often sown in England— nevertheless, we 

 regaril five bushels as a full dose at one time. Two or three 

 bushels have often been used in this country to advantoge. 



