EDUCATIONAL AND AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEES. 313 



Are these gentlemen themselves so familiar with all the sources and springs 

 of public prosperity that no farther inquiry or development is needed to enable 

 them to perform understandingly the business of government. Let any one of 

 them go into a school in his own county, and there obtain a list of all the hooks 

 and a programme of the course of instruction and publish it, (as we intend to do 

 the first leisure we can get,) and let the world judge whether such education is 

 calculated to instruct and prepare the sons of farmers to enter on the business of 

 their lives with any knoioledge of the p?-inciples which every step in their ca- 

 reer requires that they should understand ? Take one of these members of an 

 Agricultural Committee through a plain catechism as to the agricultural re- 

 sources and condition of his own county, whose interests are confined to his keep- 

 ing, as far as they depend on public legislation, and see how small he will sing 

 — how cheap he will look ! Ask him what provision has ever been made, or 

 whether he proposes to make any for an agricultural survey of the State, that 

 authentic statistics of each county may be at hand, without which, who can un- 

 derstand the bearing of the laws upon it — its burdens or its wants ? Ask him, 

 and it is ten to one he can't answer. How many acres in the county ? Has it 

 beds of lime, or marl, or coal, or iron ? How much in timber — in mountain — in 

 meadow — or in arable land ? How many domestic animals— how many labor- 

 ers — the cost of transportation, and how to be lessened ? What are its average 

 products, and with what charges are they burdened in the operations of ex- 

 changes until their ultimate values are realized ? Yet ought not careful agricul- 

 tural surveys to be provided for, which should bring to light every hidden re- 

 source, and indicate every known production and the capacity of every county? 

 Is there any act of any State Legislature, for instance, whereby the Chairman 

 of an Agricultural Committee (dumb as a fish as some of them are) can tell, 

 even as to a single county, as much as we know of foreign countries. For ex- 

 ample, we know that according to the most recent computation, England and 

 Wales contain 37,738,930 acres; Ireland 19,441,954 ; Scotland 19,738,930 ; and 

 other British Islands 1,119,159— making a total of 77,394,443. And then we 

 know by means of forecasting, provident legislation, that these acres are thus 

 appropriated : • 



In England and Wales 3,250,000 acres of land are in wheat ; 4,500,000 in barley, oats, rye, peas. 

 »Vc.; 2,400,000 in grass and turnips; 2,100,000 in fallow ; 17,500,000 in pasture ; 18,000 in pleasure 

 grounds; 1,200,000 in hedges, copses and woods; and 1,300,000 in roads, highways and water- 

 courses. 



Until these things are done for each State, and education expressly adapted to 

 Agriculture provided for, how can members of Committees on these subjects 

 reconcile it to themselves, as honest agents of the people, to lounge through a 

 whole session, pocket their per diem, and go home without even an attempt to 

 enlighten themselves or the public on the condition of these two great funda- 

 mental concerns (ff every State in this Union? What would they themselves sjiy 

 if on going back from the scat of Government to their homes, as many of them 

 do reluctantly, like boys going back after a holiday to school, what would they 

 say if they found that their overseers had in like manner neglected the matters 

 committed to them ; and yet you shall see the members of these Committees 

 and the w^ole body of legislators, even adjourning from their proper business to 



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