98 



NEW EJN GLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



"miseries" of lawyers, and closed with an earnest 

 appeal to young men to choose some other pro- 

 fession or business, if they would secure the 

 means of an honest livelihood. 



Fifty or one hundred years ago, most of the 

 learning and cultivation of the country was con- 

 fined to the professions. To be a minister, a 

 lawyer or a doctor then, was to be a great man — 

 to be raised above the other divisions of society, 

 and entitled to much deference, respect and hom- 

 age for the mere title which the profession con- 

 ferred. This is not the case now. "Men are noAV 

 respected," says a member of Congress, "as they 

 are men, and not for their calling and profession. 

 We add not an inch to any man's stature that he 

 is a physician, a counsellor or a parson. It con- 

 tributes but little to a man's social position that 

 he is of any of these professions, and it will con- 

 tribute less by-and-bye. The strong man at the 

 bench and the weak one on it, are alike finding 

 their own place. Now, learning, talent, great in- 

 tellectual power, do not rush to these professions 

 as formerly. Of the liberally educated a large 

 proportion become merchants, mechanics and farm- 

 ers. The unexampled progress made in our day 

 in the useful arts, in material expedients, has 

 opened new fields for talent and genius, and done 

 much towards making all useful trades, callings 

 and professions alike and equally respectable in 

 the opinion of men, as they are in point of fact." 

 If, then, the liberally educated are becoming farm- 

 ers, if lawyers and doctors are giving up their 

 practice and turning agriculturists, is it not a lit- 

 tle singular that anybody should insist that it is 

 one of the necessary "miseries of farming" to 

 have "a mind vacant and idle," which "turns in- 

 ward, preys upon itself, and wastes its energies 

 and those of the body which holds it," simply be- 

 cause there is nothing in agriculture for the mind 

 to do ? 



That farming has been regarded as an occupa- 

 tion which depended for success mainly upon 

 physical power — mere brute force, — that farmers 

 themselves have believed it was their business to 

 work with their hands, and to leave head-work to 

 the professions, is undoubtedly true. So long as 

 our fathers had the forest before them ; so long 

 as it was easier and cheaper to clear an acre of 

 fresh land than it was to devise the means for the 

 impx'ovement of an acre already exhausted, such 

 a theory of farming may have been practicable, 

 and so long the powers of the mind may have 

 been dormant. But when the new land was all 

 cleared up, and men were driven back to their 

 worn-out fields, they were obliged to think as well 

 as work. It became evident that something must 

 be done ; something different from what they had 

 been accustomed to do. The barren, unfruitful 

 fields would no longer produce spontaneously. 

 Men were in doubt — the first stage on the high- 

 way to knowledge ; they began to inquire ; the 

 mind was roused; a mental stimulus was fur- 

 nished ; the enthusiasm of "the absorption of 

 the mind in a great truth" was experienced ; ex 

 periments were tried ; improvements were eff"ect 

 ed, and disappointments experienced. 



That there has been a waking up of mind 

 among farmers is evident, too, from the wonder- 

 ful increase, within a few yearr, of agricultural 

 books and papers and warehouses. Fifty years 

 ago there was not I suppose, a single periodical 



devoted to agriculture published in the United 

 States, scarcely a book on any branch of farm- 

 ing to be found in any bookstore, and nothing 

 like the agricultural warehouses, which now exist 

 in all large business towns. 



At the present time there are more agricultu- 

 ral papers than States in the Union. Books al- 

 most without number offer to teach the "art and 

 science" of the profession. Botany, Chemistry, 

 Geology, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Natural His- 

 tory and other branches of the great knowledge 

 family, tired of their old "silk stocking" extlu- 

 siveness, and of the livery they have served great 

 men in, are now "scraping the acquaintance" of 

 farmers, and, in the plainest dress they can put 

 on, and in the most familiar manner they can as- 

 sume, are off"ering to assist in their most arduous 

 and disagreeable labors. And it would almost 

 seem, as one passes through such a museum of 

 farming implements as is the establishment of 

 Nourse & Co., in Boston, — whether admiring an 

 apple-paring machine, a dog-churn or a two-horse 

 mower — that mechanical ingenuity had actually 

 gone crazy in its eff"orts to save the hard work — 

 to promote the comfort, and to alleviate the 

 "miseries" of all concerned in farming. Mr. Cow- 

 per certainly never visited such an establishment, 

 or he would not have said : 



"Ingenious fancy never better pleased, 



Than when at work t' accommodate the fair ;" 



when it is so evident that not only ingenious fan- 

 cy, but high talent and deep learning are now-a- 

 days never bel ter pleased than when at work to 

 accommodate the "toiling millions that till the 

 earth." 



But I see that I have run into poetry, although 

 I commenced with the intention of being very 

 prosy. 



In my next article I will try to show that "men- 

 tal stimulus" and time for the improvement of 

 the mind, may be and are found upon the farm ; 

 and this I hope to do by arguments "as dull as 

 a fact," and as unpoetical as the multiplication 

 table. A City Mechanic. 



Boston, Jan., 1858. 



ANNUAL MEETING. 

 The annual meeting of the Trustees of the Mid- 

 dlesex County Agricultural Society took place at 

 Concord, on the 7th inst. The day was pleasant, 

 and a larger number were present than usual. 

 Wednesday, Seiyt. 29t7i, 1858, is the day fixed up- 

 on for the next exhibition. Under the energetic 

 administration of its aff'airs by Mr. President 

 Keyes, the old Society seems to have renewed 

 its youth; there was much enthusiasm among the 

 Trustees, who made important changes in the 

 premium list, and in several other particulars, 

 that will have a tendency to give the oi)erations 

 of the Society a new interest and power. 



Preventive of Potato Rot. — A su!)scriber 

 informs us that one bushel of air-slacked lime to 

 one hundred bushels of potatoes, well spread 

 through the heap, will prevent the potatoes from 

 rotting in the bin. — Oermantown Telegraph. 



