AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 62 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aohicultural Wahbmoube.)— ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



OL.XX'I.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 1, 1843. 



[NO. 31. 



N. E. FARMER, 



fVRMERS" MEETINGS AT ,THE STATE 



HOUSE. 

 rpor< of Remarks at the First Meeting, Jan. 22. 

 Mr Biickminster, Ed. Mass. Plowman, explained 

 3 course oF proceedingf at the nieetintrs in past 

 ars, and expressed his £rratification at seeing so 

 iny persons present at tliis time. Then he re- 

 irlicd tliat there is soniethinnf peculiar in the con- 

 ion of agriculturists as well as others, at the 

 ;sent time. There ia much suffering-, and yet 

 duco is abundant and prices are low. What 

 ill we do ? Many of us in this vicinity must 

 erour courses. The markets have been chang- 

 •. Fniils are becoming comparatively more im- 

 •tant. Our fruits are gaining favor, especially 

 • apples. Massachusetts apples are preferred to 

 others. Europe cannot furnish so good ; and 

 •3 are better, especially for shipping, than those 

 t grow south of us. Our attention, therefore, 

 'Uld be given more to apples — and in the south- 

 part of the Commonwealth, we can grow as 

 )d peaches as they do in New Jersey. 

 Dther States will furnish grain so cheap, that 

 cannot afford to grow it for market. Hay, 

 ss, the dairy, we can still do something with, 

 vir Merriam, ex-Ed. Boston Cultivator, tliought 

 t an influence had gone out from our meetings 

 imes pust that had been good. 

 igricullurctl Education, he named as the subject 

 his remarks. Agriculture, he said, wants the 

 ipathy, aid, and talents of educated men. How 

 11 we infuse a favorable regard for agriculture 

 I literature and legislation.' How, but by giv- 

 more agricultural education ? This matter is 

 cult to explain and impress. Onr educated men 

 w but little about agriculture. Tliey can talk 

 ut Berkshires and improved breeds, but they are 

 5rant of many of the simple things in common 

 bandry. And in the way of legislation they 

 )ut little for the farming interests. This is not 

 <■ fault, for as they know nothing about agricul- 

 , they know not how to aid it. Something 

 e should be done to give the educated more ac- 

 intance with farming. Our college lias a course 

 actures on anatomy and on architecture, and 

 graduate can talk with the physician about 

 es, and with the carpenter about the parts of 

 work — while of the /armec's operations he 

 ws nolhing, and with the farmer ho can make 

 alk. He can hardly tell a bull from a heifer. 

 ! man of eminence has said he did not know a 

 ipkin from a squash. This was not the man's 

 t, but the fault of his education. He, and oth- 

 oflearning and eminence, have no sympathy 

 \ farmers. How can we create such a syinpa- 

 ? We must have a college professor of agri- 

 ure. Had the college an experimental farm, 

 I those students who had a taste for agriculture, 

 Id gratify it, and would fit themselves for the 

 ivation of the soil. Many educated men, es- 

 ially ministers, regret much that they know 

 ling about farming. 



Of all the pursuits of life, farming is the most 

 important. Remove all theologians, and yet a 

 knowledge of God would bo obtained from his 

 works. Remove the lawyers, and we might bo 

 quite as well off as now. Remove the physicians, 

 and in the opinion of some, we might live as long 

 and be as well as now : — But without farmers we 

 cannot get along. 



If the farmers ever wish talent to bear on Agri- 

 culture, they must educate men for the purpose of 

 actiuginits behalf. But they cannot do this by 

 means of an agricultural school — even such an one 

 as may at sometime be established under Mr Buz- 

 zy's will, cannot do enough — it can influence only 

 a few. We want some of this education given to 

 all our graduates, so that they may look upon agri- 

 culture as a reputable science — as much so as the 

 other pursuits of life, and so that the young of both 

 sexes shall not turn away from it. "If we would 

 have Agriculture as prominent as the sister arts,'" 

 we must make the young look upon it with favor. 



In our country now, the prospects for moral and 

 reliiiinus growth are bright, because of the abun- 

 dance of our productions. We have ntmc of the 

 starvation which in England is stirring up the peo- 

 ple, and scattering "fire-brands, arrows and death." 

 Our agriculturists make the greater part of our 

 population, and pay three-quarters of the duties ; 

 and yet the President said nothing of agriculture 

 in his message. So litile is this great interest re- 

 garded. 



Sons take their notions from the father; and 

 where the parents disdain agriculture and labor, 

 the children will do so too. All our young men at 

 college learn what they ought not, and what it 

 takes them a long time to unlearn, viz : a disdain 

 for the laboring classes. 



In common schools there is no instruction upon 

 agriculture, and yet there ought to be, and might 

 be. 



That the education of farmers is defective, has 

 been said by Mr Rives, of Virginia, and by Gov. 

 Seward, of New York. But that it is so, is not 

 their fault. At our colleges farming is not proper- 

 ly regarded. Mr M. said, I am not envious of, or 

 hostile to, our colleges, but I would tax them if 

 they will not do somelhing for farming. 



Mr Brown, of Medway, thought that the gentle- 

 man who preceded him had been too general in his 

 remarks relating to the disesteem of agriculture, 

 and that the evil, so far as it exists, is not to be charg. 

 cd so much to defects in the college course, as in 

 the common schools, and especially in the family. 

 The evil lies in this, viz: an idea that those who 

 acquire some considerable learning cannot work, or 

 are not expected to work, with their hands. Here 

 lies the evil ; and this evil should be corrected. 



It is not true that the educated men in the coun- 

 tnj are uninterested in farming. Many of these 

 men are in fact deeply interested, and are allowed 

 by all to be among the very best farmers. Young 

 men, in many instances, who have spent a boyhood 

 in farming, afterwards get an education, and then 

 carry on farms in connection with professional la- 

 bors. A professorship of agriculture might do 



good, but its great influence would be to promote a 

 sort of genteel farming. We want something that 

 will Work more early and more widely, and that 

 can he applied in the school and the family. 



Mr Merriam. If you dignify agriculture at the 

 college, the science comes up in the public esti- 

 mation. 



Mr Cole, Ed. Farmers' Journal, asked whether, 

 if ministers, lawyers and doctors are of little use, 

 it is because they have been to college ? , 



Mr Merriam. "I did not say , they arc of no 

 use. The gentleman misunderstands me." 



Mr Cole. " I think not — I have no intention to 

 misrepresent." 



Mr C. further said, that as far as he had observ- 

 ed, there was no profession more respectable than 

 farming. Why is it that candidates for political 

 offices are spoken of as Jarmers, emphatically, by 

 their partisans? Why do men claim for their can- 

 didates the title of farmers, if it be not honorable ? 



Mr Putnam, Ed. N. E. Farmer, was sorry that 

 any statements should be made which represented 

 that the farmer's calling is not as respectable as 

 that of others ; for even if such is the fact, the 

 proclamation of it here, and the sending it out to be 

 read by the youth of the land, will tend to increase 

 the very evil we wish to remedy. If we say it is 

 disreputable, the young will believe that it is so, and 

 will hold their notions and govern their course ac- 

 cordingly. His own observations did not tell him 

 that farmers and farming arc held in disesteem by 

 men of other pursuits ; so far as he knew, it is the 

 farmers themselves who speak unfavorably of their 

 calling, and not the professional men, or the mer- 

 chants and mechanics. Many in trade look to the 

 farm as the place where they hope to pass the even- 

 ing of their days: candidates for office are put 

 forward aa farmers. These are indications of the 

 estimate in which the calling is held. He would 

 be glad to see a professorship of agriculture at col- 

 lege, and instruction relating to farming given in 

 the common schools and in the family. He would 

 rejoice at the adoption of any means which should 

 make the farmers a more intelligent and scientific 

 class of men. But he was sorry that a representa- 

 tion should go out from here, that the calling ia 

 not jiow respectable and respected. 



Mr Merriam protested .against the misrepresen- 

 tation which had been put upon his remarks by two 

 of the official reporters. He had not said that 

 rming was not respectable; but he wanted to 

 have the pursuit brought up to be regarded as fa- 

 vorably as other callings. 



[NoTK. — We have tried in this report to make 

 Mr Merriam's remarks bear as slightly as his lan- 

 guage possibly could, against the common (and just) 

 estimation in which farming is held, excepting in 

 one sentence, where we have quoted his own lan- 

 guage and marked it as a quotation. We are una- 

 ble to see how a man can plead strenuously to 

 have agriculture raised up to equally favorable re- 

 gard as other arts and sciences, without leaving it 

 as a necessary inference, that agriculture now is 

 comparatively loiv and in disrepute.^ — Ed.] 



Mr Buckminster had worked at farming in his 



