No. 4. 



Silas WrighVs Address. 



123 



can be extended, and instruct himself as to 

 the necessities, and wants and tastes of the 

 consumers of agricultural productions in 

 other countries. He must observe atten- 

 tively the course of trade, and the causes 

 calculated to exert a favourable or adverse 

 influence upon it; watch closely the com- 

 mercial policy of other countries, and guard 

 vigilantly that of his own; accommodate 

 his productions, as far as may be, to the pro- 

 bable demands upon the market, and under- 

 stand how to prepare them for the particular 

 market for which they are designed. Next 

 to the production of the best article at the 

 cheapest price, its presentation in the market 

 in the best order and most inviting condition, 

 is important to secure to the farmer a ready 

 and remunerating market. 



So long as o'jr agricultural shall continue 

 to be an exporting interest, these considera- 

 tions, as second only to the science of pro- 

 duction itself, will demand the careful at- 

 tention and study of our farmers, and in any 

 well digested system of agricultural educa- 

 tion, its connection with manufactures and 

 the mechanic arts, with commerce, with the 

 commercial policy of our own and other 

 countries, and with the domestic and foreign 

 market, should hold a prominent place. A 

 thorough and continued education in these 

 collateral, but highly necessary branches of 

 knowledge to the farmer, will prove exten- 

 sively useful to the American citizen, beyond 

 their application to the production and sale 

 of the fruits of his labour. They will quality 

 him the more safely and intelligently to dis- 

 charge the duties of a freeman; and if called 

 by his fellow citizens to do so, the more 

 beneficially to serve his state and country 

 in leirislative and other public trusts. 



I hope I may offer another opinion in this 

 connection, without giving offence, or tres- 

 passing upon the proprieties of the place and 

 occasion. It is that this education in the 

 just and true connection between the agri- 

 cultural, the commercial, and the manufac- 

 turing interests of our country, equally and 

 impartially disseminated among the clas.ses 

 of citizens attached to each of these great 

 branches of labour, would effectually put an 

 end to the jealousies too frequently excited ; 

 demonstrating to every mind, so educated, 

 that, so tar from either being in any degree 

 the natural antagonist of the other, they are 

 all parts o^ one great and naturally harmo- 

 nious system of human industry, of which a 

 fair encouragement to any part is a benefit 

 to all ; and that all invidious and partial en- 

 couragement to any part, at the expense of 

 any other part, will prove to be an injury to 

 all. The education proposed will do all 

 that can be done to mark the true line be- 



tween the natural and healthful encourage- 

 ment to either inleref-t.and an undue attempt 

 to advance any one, at the expense of the 

 united system, merely producing an unnatu- 

 ral and artificial relation and action, which 

 cannot fail to work disease and injury. 



The labours of this Society, and of kin- 

 dred associations, have done much to inform 

 the minds of our farmers in these collateral 

 branches of knowledge useful to them, and 

 much remains to be done. The science of 

 production claims the first place, and is a 

 wide field, as yet so imperfectly cultivated 

 as to afford little time for collateral labours. 

 To secure a stable and healthful market, and 

 to learn how to retain and improve it, also 

 opens an extensive field for the mental la- 

 bours and energies of the farmer. Between 

 these objects the relation is intimate and the 

 dependence mutual. The production makes 

 the market, and the market sustains the pro- 

 duction. The prospect of a market stimu- 

 lates to activity in the field of production, 

 and the fruits of that activity urge the mind 

 to make the prospect real. Success in both 

 contributes to the health and vigor and pros- 

 perity of agriculture, and of that prosperity 

 commerce and manufactures cannot fail 

 largely to partake. 



All are willing to promote the cause of 

 agriculture in our State and country. Most 

 are ready to lend an active co-operiition, and' 

 all are cheerful to see accomplished any 

 valuable improvement in this great branch 

 of productive industry. The difficulty hith- 

 erto has been in adopting any general plan 

 to effect this desirable object. Hence, most 

 usually, when the public mind has been 

 awakened to the subject, arbitrary, and in 

 many cases visionary experiments have been 

 introduced, based upon no philosophical in- 

 vestigation of cause and effect, hut upon 

 some accidental trial, by a single individual, 

 of some novel mode of culture, which, under 

 the circumstances attending the experiment, 

 has met with success. This single experi- 

 ment, without an inquiry into, or a know- 

 ledge of the cause which, in the given cafe, 

 has secured the successful result, is at once 

 recommended as an infallible rule of hus- 

 bandry. The publication and dissemination 

 of detached experiments of this character, 

 for a long period, constituted the most mate- 

 rial additions to the stock of literary informa- 

 tion connected with agriculture, supplied to 

 our farmers; while many of the experiments- 

 were tfio intricate and complicated to be re- 

 duced to practice with any certainty of ac- 

 curacy, and others were so expensive that 

 the most perfect success would not warrant 

 the outlay. Unsuccessful attempts to follow 

 the directions given for making these expe- 



