No. 5. 



Prince George Agricultural Society. 



147 



done by individual exertion, was accomplish- 

 ed by associated enterprise. Agricultural 

 societies were soon established, composed of 

 men of eminent learning and of practical 

 experience in the art of husbandry, and by 

 means of the information which they col- 

 lected and diffused, the spirit of emulation 

 they promoted, and the inducements they 

 held out to discoveries of new and useful 

 improvements in the management and culti- 

 vation of the soil, agriculture in a short time 

 advanced from a comparatively low and de- 

 graded condition, to one of exalted honour 

 and excellence. 



We are indebted to Samuel Hartlib, the 

 friend of Milton and of Cromwell, a distin- 

 guished English agriculturist of the six- 

 teenth century, for the establishment of ag- 

 ricultural societies. In a work called the 

 Legacy, which he published about the mid- 

 dle of that century, he strongly recommend- 

 ed the foundation of a National Institution, 

 for the encouragement of husbandry; and 

 also the formation of individual associations 

 for the promotion of agricultural knowledge. 

 It does not appear that the Government fol- 

 lowed his recommendation, by establishing 

 at that early period any public institution of 

 the kind, but in accordance with his sugges- 

 tions, individual associations were formed in 

 several parts of the kingdom; and in a short 

 time their beneficial effects were manifested 

 by the renewed assiduity with which agri- 

 culture was pursued, as well by the nobility 

 as by the gentry. From this time down to 

 the year 1660, when the rebellion and civil 

 wars which had for so many years convulsed 

 the nation, terminated; and from that time, 

 to the year 1793, a period of more than a cen- 

 tury, the subject of agriculture attracted more 

 attention in England, than it had done in any 

 former years. The writings of Kaimes, of 

 Sinclair and Hunter, of Evelyn and Ray, of 

 Duckett, Dugdale and Young, of Anderson, 

 and many other eminent men during this pe- 

 riod, together with the establishment of ag- 

 ricultural societies and other literary insti- 

 tutions, having for their objects the promotion 

 of the useful arts: such as the Royal Society, 

 the Society of Arts, and others of a like na- 

 ture, had so elevated the art of husbandry, 

 and so thoroughly imbued the great mass of 

 the people with a love of its pursuit, and 

 awakened them to a sense of its usefulness 

 and importance, that the Government, in the 

 year 1793, established for the first time, a 

 Board of Agriculture, similar in many re- 

 spects to that which Hartlib had recommend- 

 ed more than a hundred years before. To 

 the exertions of this institution, in obtaining 

 and disseminating information on the objects 

 of its formation, by its offer of rewards for 



important discoveries, its premiums for arti- 

 cles of excellence in all the departments of 

 agricultural industry, and to its efforts gene- 

 rally in promoting and advancing the agri- 

 cultural interest of the nation, may be as- 

 cribed that spirit of enterprise and eminent 

 success, which have since marked the prose- 

 cution of agricultural pursuits in England; 

 and which, within the last fifty years, have 

 placed the art of husbandry in the advance 

 of all other human occupations. 



The same successful results seem to have 

 followed the establishment of agricultural 

 societies in France, in Germany, and other 

 European States. No less than fifteen so- 

 cieties were formed in one year in France, 

 with the sanction of the Government, for the 

 express purpose of encouraging the pursuit 

 of agriculture; and premiums were offered 

 for the best essays on the subject of practical 

 husbandry, as well as for every variety of 

 useful improvements in the manufacture of 

 labour saving machinery. The Royal family 

 used to attend these societies in person, and 

 at Lyons, Bordeaux, and Amiens, were peri- 

 odically assembled the most influential and 

 scientific men of France, lending their zeal- 

 ous co-operation in advancing the interest, 

 and promoting the happiness of the cultiva- 

 tors of the soil. Throughout Germany, par- 

 ticularly in the province of Bavaria, at 

 Berne in Switzerland, and at Stockholm in 

 Sweden, similar institutions were establish- 

 ed. To the spirit of emulation and general 

 fondness for agricultural pursuits, created by 

 the formation of these societies in Sweden, 

 may be ascribed the botanical and other 

 writing of the great Swedish philosopher 

 Linnaeus, to whose indefatigable exertions 

 and philosophical researches we are indebted 

 for the best exposition of the nature and pro- 

 perties of plants, and for the most perfect 

 analysis of the laws of the vegetable king- 

 dom, which has evjer been presented to the 

 world. 



At no period, however, and in no part of 

 the world have agricultural societies exerted 

 so happy an influence on the agricultural in- 

 dustry of a nation, as they have done, within 

 the last quarter of a century, in the United 

 States. Notwithstanding the high degree 

 of excellence which the practice of husband- 

 ry had attained in the old countries of Eu- 

 rope, it seems to have made but little pro- 

 gress among the early settlers on this conti- 

 nent. In old and thickly populated countries, 

 where prerogative privileges are the fruits 

 of hereditary right, and where, from the na- 

 ture of their political institutions, the masses 

 of the people are excluded from general par- 

 ticipation in what are usually termed the 

 professional pursuits, agriculture is more 



