1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



99 



DEARTH OF AGRICULTURAL FACTS. 



Some of our cotemporaries commenced the Naw 

 Year with complaint.s of a dearth, in the agricultu- 

 ral press, so far as facts are concerned. Day after 

 day, says one of our brother editors, do we scan 

 over the broad pages of our numerous exchanges, 

 English and American, and are compelled to throw 

 them down without obtaining one new idea, one 

 solitary fact. 



A little reflection on these lamentations has sug- 

 gested to our minds the inquiry, whether the dearth 

 here complained of should not be regarded rather 

 as a favorable omen, than as a matter of regret, — 

 whether agricultural editors are not often so anx- 

 ious to furnish new facts and new ideas as to injure 

 the cause they wish to promote, by giving currency 

 to crude, indigested and indigestible plans and 

 "facts," which sorely disappoint the practical far- 

 mer, and shake his confidence in the recommend- 

 ations of things new and old that he finds in his 

 paper. 



New facts and ideas are far less frequently de- 

 veloped in all the various departments of learning 

 than the careless observer is apt to suppose. Of 

 agriculture, we believe this remark is especially true. 

 Still we apprehend that editors of journals devoted 

 to other branches of art and science, find new facts 

 about as "solitary" in the exchanges that pile their 

 tables, as agricultural editors do. Be this as it may, 

 we do not suppose that the value of their publica- 

 tions is in the ratio of the amount of absolutely 

 new facts and ideas that are advanced. 



It would, however, be very agreeable to us to be 

 able to communicate in every issue of our paper, 

 some valuable new idea, some fresh fact — some- 

 thing of practical importance, that no farmer has 

 ever heard or thought of — something that should 

 promote the well-being of our readers — something 

 that should add to the knowledge of their heads, to 

 the money in their pockets, and to the goodness of 

 their hearts — or something that shouid increase 

 their faith in our wisdom, and in the indispensable 

 utility of our communications. We labor and look 

 for most of these desirable results j but we have 

 never relied upon new ideas and startling facts to 

 produce them. 



What are new ideas and new facts ? It has even 

 been said that there is no new thing under the sun. 

 Tne pictured tombs of Egypt and the buried cities 

 of Nineveh, if they fail to confirm the literal truth 

 of Solomon's declaration, have ante-dated, some 

 thousands of years, so many of the discoveries and 

 inventions that have been called modern, that those 

 best informed upon tbeee matters are most ready 

 to believe that railroads, telegraphs, and other most 

 recent inventions, are mere re-productions of "that 

 which hath been." 



To us, however, the agricultural press is compar- 



atively a new thing ; and, as is often the case with 

 other things that we regard as new, extravagant 

 expectations of its benefits may have been encour- 

 aged by those interested in its extension. And as 

 extravagant we must regard the promises of edit- 

 ors, and the expectations of readers, that an agri- 

 cultural paper shall be constantly freighted with 

 new facts, or new ideas ; because agriculture — even 

 scientific agriculture— is not a new thing. Back as 

 far as we can trace the history of man, we find that 

 agriculture was regarded not only as a necessity 

 imposed by his Creator, but as a theme worthy of 

 the poet, the philosopher, and the historian. Its 

 eulogies were chanted by bards. Its precepts were 

 handed down by tradition. Its details have been 

 preserved by the sculptor. The few copies of ag- 

 ricultural scenes from the painted tombs of Egjpt, 

 that we have saet with, have excited our curiosity 

 to see more, and we hope that some agricultural 

 antiquarian will yet visit these wonderful records 

 of the past, and give us a full description of all that 

 relate to the subject of farming. In some of the 

 works of Mr. Glidden, we believe it was, we saw 

 some years since, a copy of the Egyptian mode 

 of threshing grain, with a translation of the thresh- 

 ers' song; the only distich of which, that we re- 

 member, was to this effect : 



"Hie along oxen, hie along faster, 



The straw for yourselves, the corn for your master.-' 



Of Roman agriculture we are much better in- 

 formed, as several of their treatises upon the sub- 

 ject have been preserved entire, and others in parts, 

 or fragments. Those who have investigated the ag- 

 ricultural system of the Romans, say that it shows 

 that most of the improvements in modern agricul- 

 ture, have been nothing more than the revival of 

 what was well understood and practised by that 

 people, two centuries ago. 



If, then, the agricultural press is at present suf- 

 fering from a dearth of new facts and new ideas — 

 if modern improvements and inventions are a mere 

 repetition of what was known and practised long 

 ago, it may be asked, of what advantage are agri- 

 cultural papers to the farmer ? If the value of 

 things depended mainly upon their newness — if a 

 truth once revealed needed no further revelation — 

 if the wisdom of the fathers descended directly to 

 the sons — if every farmer did not have to learn all 

 the processes of his business for himself, and in ma- 

 ny respects just as he would have to do were he 

 the first man that ever planted a seed — and if facts, 

 bare, dry facts, were the only staples of agricultu- 

 ral papers, then might we despair of usefulness when 

 new ideas could neither be coined in our own brain, 

 nor gleaned from the ample pages of our exchang- 

 es. 



The good old ways oar fathers trod — though 

 often scouted — are still to be commended, in pref- 

 erence even to a new path, until we are well satis- 



