1846. 



GENESEE FARMER. 



2S3 



fcteadof being placed in a law office, or put behind 

 a counter, then shall the farmers not be depend- 

 ent on other pursuits for theli- law makers, their 

 judges, orators and statesmen, and not till then. 



There is nothing inherently degrading in the 

 cultivation of mother earth — nothing to induce 

 mental imbecility or ignorance — nothing in labor 

 in the open iields depressing to the intellect or 

 calculated to crush or check the expansive pow- 

 er of the soul — but quite the reverse. Toil, 

 amid the beauties of nature, with the lovely as 

 well as mighty v/orks of the omnipotent all about, 

 is invigorattng alike to mind and body — inculca- 

 ting reverence, love and adoration to God, and 

 knitting firmly the texture and power of intel- 

 lect, as well as the physical frame-work of the man. 



The earth which he tills — the crops which he 

 gathers — the flocks which he tends — open to the 

 study of the farmer, a wide field ; each present 

 numerous subjects for study, reflection and ex- 

 periment — volumes richly stored with matters for 

 the investigation of the curious, and which will 

 employ a life time to fully digest and compre- 

 hend. It is not true that the farmer has no oc- 

 casion for his intellect in the pursuit of his call- 

 ing ; and quite as unfounded and more deleteri- 

 ous in its consequences, the idea that he needs 

 not to be educated, or learned in the sciences — 

 that he need not to study and become wise and 

 intelligent. A knowledge of the nature of soils — 

 tlieir preparation for and adaptation to the growth 

 of crops — of the influence and exhausting nature 

 of grain growing to the soil, and of the ditfer- 

 ent eflectsof dilFerent grains — of the influence of 

 heat and cold, light and darkness, on the growth 

 of the food upon which plants feed, whether of 

 earth or air, and of the chemical changes which 

 take place in their germinative growth and ma- 

 turity — of the best supplies for exhaustion, and 

 the best combinations for, with their apprapriate 

 application of, manures — of the nature and rem- 

 edies of the diseases common to domestic ani- 

 mals, &c., &c. I say a knowledge on the points 

 above indicated is, and must be, of the highest 

 practicable value to the farmer. Indeed it is in- 

 dispensable to him, in the intelligent pursuit of 

 his business ; and in them we have subject for 

 study, for years of patient investigation, for con- 

 tinuous and repeated experiment. They are not 

 to be learned by simple practice in tilling the 

 soil — nor by observation disconnected from an 

 understanding of scientific principles, however 

 close and keen the attention. They should form 

 a part of the education, the mental acquisitions 

 and discipline of the youth before he grows up 

 and assumes the actual direction of the farm. — 

 I cannot see how else we are to have scientific 

 farmers. Few men, comparatively, will begin 

 to acquire the necessary knowledge to make 

 them really enlightened cultivators of the soil, 

 if they have grown up to manhood in ignorance 

 or without attention to it; few have the time. 



and less the patience and close application so ne- 

 cessary in the acquisition of the principles and 

 detail of science. But let them once be learned, 

 once fixed in the mind, and then the every-day 

 practice, the continued observation, the daily 

 routine of the farmer's life is continually calling 

 up, applying and rendering them subservient to 

 good and useful purposes. I know a man can 

 make a farmer, and in some instances a good 

 one, who has nothing of the knowledge above 

 alluded to ; but it is, I imagine, equally true, 

 that, in nine cases out of ten, he who is lacking 

 in such acquirements, will gather but scanty 

 crops, comparatively, and fail to obtain the full 

 equivalent. for his labor ; — his farm will yield 

 less, demand more labor and manure, and sooner 

 become exhausted, while he himself will plod on 

 in life a "lere cypher — a simple laborer, a kind of 

 free slave to some more crafty or wiser neighbor. 

 Knowledge is power, — whether applied to 

 the productions oi the green and fruitful earth, 

 or to moral and intellectual achievements. — 

 Knowledge is happiness, too, whether it be pos- 

 sessed by him who toils in the field, and studies 

 nature in her own magnificent store-house of 

 carpeted earth and outspread heavens, or by him 

 who revels amid the wonders of science in his 

 closet. Knowledge is the means of doing good, 

 whether it be applied to an increase of the pro- 

 ductions of the farm — and which form the suste- 

 nance of mankied — or to the moi-al advancement 

 of the community in which we live ; and all are 

 bound to seek it, and all are culpable who have 

 the means and fail to attain it. We cannot mea- 

 sure our full intellectual and moral stature, nor 

 come up to the correct standard of duty, if we 

 fail in storing our minds with information, which 

 will enable us to grow more grain, produce more 

 of the necessaries of life, and at the same time 

 fit us for the enjoyment of an elevated, rational, 

 and enlightened social intercourse ; and surely 

 God will hold us all, farmers and others, to a 

 strict account for the improvement of the means 

 of advancement which he has placed in our 

 hands or within our reach. We were not placed 

 on the earth to be dolts. We each and all have 

 positive, active duties to perform ; nor did the 

 Almighty give us our rich and beautiful farms 

 to remain uncultivated — nor what is in princii)le 

 the same, to have them half cultivated. . We 

 cannot, if we would, shake oft" responsibility, in 

 the manner in which we use our money, our 

 time, or our farms ; and ifthc Lord has given to 

 us that best of all gifts, children, it but adds to 

 our responsibility, and we shall not be accounted 

 innocent if we fail to give them the proper mor- 

 al, intellectual and physical culture. But I see 

 t am entering a field too broarl to be traversed in 

 this paper — and as I have much to say on the 

 subject of education before I am done, I dismiss 

 the subject for the present. 

 PennYan, Nov., 18i6. D. A. Ogden. 



