JNEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOHN B. RUSSEI.L, lUKJKRS' BUH-DINGP. CONGRK.^S STItKKI', BOSTON.— THOMAS G. FF.SSF.NDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL. in. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1»24. 



No. 14. 



<©n'tjfual CTommuuicntious. 



I'here ;iro at this (l;iy iiei>i-l_v i's nKiny pnlilick 

 8!iuws in France, ns lliere, are departments,- 



REMARKS OF THE HON. MR LOWELL. 



At a meeting of the Trustres of tlie Massachusetts 

 Society for Promoting .Agriculture, at Briglitoii, Oclo- 



borSl, 1C2-1— 



" J'oled, That the President be requostrd to commti- 

 iilcate for publication, the remarks made by him, pre- 

 vious to announcing' the names and duties of the sever- 

 al committees, at the Cattle Showij-esttrday." 



Attest, 

 BENJ. GUILD, Assist. Rcc. Sec-y. 



Soon afier llie first establishment of this an- 

 tiiKil festival, the Trustees of this Society deem- 

 ed it proper to excite the puMick attention by 

 an anntial Address. It seemed to be necessary 

 lo vindicate the establishment of such a cele- 

 bration and Show, and to awaken the attention 

 of our Farmers to the importance as well as to 

 (lie defects of their interesting jmrsnit. Our 

 fellow-citizens, when called to any pviblic meet- 

 ing', have a strong desire of being amnscd and 

 instructed. Our country, from its very constitu- 

 tion, its reasoning and thinking habits, demands 

 on all such occasions intellectual exercise. No 

 nation, if we except ancient Greece, was ever 

 so much addicted to the pleasures nf the Under- 

 standing. If their taste for knowledge has not 

 been so much refined as that of Greece is said 

 lo have been, it is at least as ardent. We can 

 have no public meetings without speeches, ora- 

 tions, discourses, or sermons. To be sure, it 

 mjjst be admitted that some o! these prviducliois? 

 are often of inferior merit, but they still serve 

 to stimulate the almost miiversal relish for in- 

 tellectual enjoyment. They are the best possi- 

 ble proof of a general thirst for knowledge. If 

 these productions are sometimes indid'erent, 

 they are censured or forgotten. But w;hether 

 good or bad, they accustom our citizens to think 

 and to reason, to condemn or to praise. 



It has been found however by experience, 

 that there is neither the necessity, originally 

 presumed, for such addresses upon this occasion, 

 nor the time requisite for them, consistently 

 with the laborious duties of the day. It is no 

 longer necessary lo justify these exhiliitions, 

 since fifty millions of men In Europe anil .Amer- 

 ica have sanctioned them by their adoption. It 

 public opinion is any test, (and we can scarcely 

 lind a better in an enlightened age,) it is now 

 settled, that these exhibitions of agricultur.il 

 productions and of manufacturing skill are emi- 

 nently useful. 



To the ancient world, — to Greece and Rome 

 in their best days, — such exhibitions were en- 

 tirely unknown. How could it be otherwise 

 when the Farmers were slaves, whose condition 

 was very little better than that of the black 

 population of the West India Islands ? The 

 knowledge of the agricultural art was confined 

 to men of wealth and letters. Thev dictat- 

 ed to their overseers, what course of industry 

 their slaves should pursue. It is not more than 

 half a century since the first experiment was 

 made in any part of the world, of giving a slim 

 ulus to agricultural and mechanical efforts, by 

 public Sko-u's and Rexeards. 



innocent and unl(.'mpting (lursuils of agriculture. 

 Such has been the sentiment of poets, philoso- 



, about ninety — and there is, once in three years, phers, and statesmen in all ages ; and under no 



form of government, does it appear to me to be. 

 so essential, as undcrono so truly republican as 



I grand national exhibition at Paris, the list of 

 whose premiums fills an octavo volume of 350 

 pages ! What a strong proof of their supposed I our own 



utility, in one of the most enlightened nations ol 

 the world ! England I'.as not so many, but they 

 are numerous, and quite as efScient ; and the 

 United Slates have at this moment nearly fifty 

 public exhibitions of this description. And the 

 trustees of the various Societies embrace some 

 of the ablest men in our nation, including one 

 of the late I'residcnts of the United States and 

 many individuals, who have held, or continue to 

 hold offices of the highest rank in the legislative 

 and judicial departments. It is therefore to be 

 fairly inferred, that (hey are felt, and acknowl- 

 edged to be eminentiv useful. It would be ab- 

 surd to suppose that so many enlightened men 

 in so many nations would have favoured a plan 

 which was of small utility. 



If it were needful to enter into details, we 

 could easily show, that their effects have been 

 Inlly as great as this universal approbation would 

 lead us to presume. That the progress of agri- 

 culture and manufactures has been more rapidly 

 promoted by these exhibition'^, than by all the 

 writings of cultivators from Cato and Coi.umkl- 

 i.A to Evr.r.vN, DuHAMF.L, and Young. Yet we 

 would not be understood lo undervalue tlicir 

 services. The connexion between science and 

 practice is much more intimate, than mere prac- 

 tical men are willing to admit, or than some of 

 them compreh(?nd. The sailor, who is placed 

 at the helm, and guides his ship safely in the 

 darkest night, is little aware that he owes to 

 GoDrREY, an American, the instrument, and lo 

 Newton and Kepler, and our own Ijowditch, 

 the principles, which enable him lo cross a 

 trackless ocean with perfect certainty of arriv- 

 ing at his distant port ; — and the mechanic, sta- 

 tioned at the power-loom, has very little con- 

 ception of the depth of knowledge, and painful 

 research ofWATr, anil .Akkwricht, and our own 

 Pfrkins, which have enabled him to accomplish 

 in (ine hour, what, nnuided. he could nof have 

 performed in a hundred hours. 



Agriculture has none of these splendid achieve- 

 ments of science to enroll. There is no short 

 mode of making the earth productive, and of 

 saving human labour. Perhaps it is hesl that 

 none such should ever be discovered. It would 

 diminish (he number of persons devoted to that 

 great and important art, — would of course les- 

 sen the cla'^s of citizens devoted to the most 

 healthy employment ; one, which leads to the 

 fewest (emp(a(jnns, and one which necessarily 

 provides in every state a healthy, vigorous, and 

 uncorrupted population. 



It would seem to my mind, I say it with diffi- 

 dence, that no greater misfortune could hajipen 

 to society, than the discovery of an art in agri- 

 culture, which should supersede the necessity 

 ofemployuig a greater number of men to sup- 

 port and sustain the minority. I fully believe 

 that the purity, freedom and happiness of every 

 nation is essentially connected with the neces- 

 sity of employing (he greater number in the 



But though agriculture has not experienced 

 any of those great changes, which have totally 

 overthrown the old means of industry in the 

 other occupations of man, — although we can 

 neither plough nor sow by steam, nor by the 

 novel combinations of (he mechanick powers, 

 yet agriculture owes much, very much, to men 

 of philosophical research. AgricuUuie has al- 

 ways been much more of a science, (han our 

 farmers are ready (o believe. They sometimes 

 sneer at " book-learning;"' and it is precisely 

 because (hey know too litde of the history of 

 their own art. The better (hey are informed, 

 (he higher the respect they will pay to philo- 

 sophical inquiries into the [irocesses of agricul- 

 ture. 



Even (he most common articles which (he 

 farmer raises, were originally introduced by 

 theoretical men. Who introduced the Potato into 

 Europe, which now furnishes subsistence to 

 many millions of human beings? The gallant 

 but unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh — a man of 

 consummate genius and great science, for the 

 age in which ho lived. Who transplanted the 

 Sugar cane from India — and the Coflee plant ? 

 Theoretical cultivators. Who introduced the 

 Cotton plant into our own country ? Theoretical 

 cultivators. That plant now furnishes nearly 

 forty millions of dollars gross income to the 

 people of the United Stales, and combined as it 

 now is with our domestic manufactures, i( may 

 be s.iid (o be the greatest blessing ever bestow- 

 ed on our Country. Would any practical farmer 

 have gone abroad in search of this valuable 

 plant? Certainly not. Who introduced the Me- 

 rino sheep — (he Swedish (nrnip — (he Mangel 

 Wurtzel — the Millet — which now constitute s6 

 large a part of our productions, in the most im- 

 proved States of our Union ? 



We need not enlarge. Agriculture owes as 

 much lo Science as its sister arts, though ita 

 progress is necessarily more slow, and therefore 

 less perceptible ; and it is much retarded by the 

 jiabiusies and unfounded repugn?ince of some 

 farmers to adopt any thing (hat is new. Within 

 the last year we have seen a serious attempt (o 

 persuade us, that the English race of swine were 

 little better in form than woodchucks, or in other 

 words, deformed and miserable. Yet it is a 

 well supported fact, (hat the improvement in 

 the breed of these animals has been declared by 

 the best judge in (his State, because (he largest 

 purchaser and packer of pork, (o be equivalent 

 in value, (o (his State alone, to $100,000. The 

 same illiberal, because unfounded prejudice in- 

 duced this opponent lo allege, that the new 

 breeds were smaller and less productive, while it 

 is a fact susceptible of positive proof, that their 

 weight at the same age is from 30 to 50 per 

 cent, greater ; and they have been so much 

 more esteemed, that they have brought from 

 3 5 to 20 per cent, more for the same weight 

 than the old races — and permit me to add also, 



