THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



69 



industry The agriciiltuial and geological sur- 

 veys of several states, are coining at the root of 

 the matter: and these surveys ought to go on, 

 until the now more than half hidden resources ol 

 our counti-y are fully developed. It is to the earth 

 that we must look for the valuable and inexhaust- 

 ible store house of nature, filled with the rude ma- 

 terial for the productive laborer, and rich in be- 

 stowing the nutriment of life. A nation which 

 bases its hopes of prosperity upon any less sub- 

 stantial resources, can never acquire unfluctuating 

 national wealth. 



At this time, it is for the interest of the com- 

 munity to hold out such allurements to agricultu- 

 ral pursuits that more may be induced to engage 

 in them ;— such inducements as will not only lead 

 to the cultivation of the distant sections of the 

 Union, but also to give that dignity to labor and 

 encouragement to nulustry, which will lead the 

 young men of New England, as well as the other 

 old states, to bring forth the whole strength of 

 their own native soil, before they will feel inclin- 

 ed to court the augmented privations and slavish 

 toil which must necessarily be submitted to in 

 subduing the soil of a distant region. 



Li the old state of Massachusetts, where the 

 Pilgrims first turned the sod, an agricultural sur- 

 vey recently completed demonstrates that not one 

 iourth of what the soil is capable of bearing, is 

 yet obtained. 



Tlie ample field for labor at home would em- 

 ploy every son of the New England farmer who 

 may come to thestage of action for half a cen 

 tury at least. There is enough land in New Eng- 

 land to sustain and enrich at least ten times ai 

 many agriculturists as are now employed. Then 

 why" do so many of our young men go abroad ? 

 Better far would it have been for many of them 

 had they remained in the land of their fathers. 

 Let the spirit of the following address, from the 

 pen of C. P. llsley, he difliised throughout New 

 England : 



Leave not your own New England soil 



For clime more bright, more fair — 

 Leave not your hill-sides and your streams, 



Your own pure mountain air. 

 Though warm and fertile is the West— 



Though lighter there the toil- 

 Still labor here reaps rich reward — 

 Leave not your native soil ! 



Hn 





Where all your treasures be — 

 The old house by your father built 



Under the waving tree : 

 That tree was planted by your sire 



When young in years and toil, 

 'iXeath which in infancy you played— 



Leave not your nalive soil ! 

 You will not leave your native soil — 



Your fields and pastures fair — 

 Y'our greenwood haunts, the babbling str 



That maketh music there : 

 You will not leave this sylvan home 



Far from the world's turmoil— 

 Y'ou will not slight this friendly voice — 



Leave not your native soil ! 

 I know you love your native soil 



With feelings strong and deep— 

 The old church planted round with grav 



Wherein your kindred sleep. 

 Forsake not then the old homestead 



1 foil- 



lbe< 



Leave not your native soil ! 



For the Farmer's Monthly Visitor. 

 On tlic necessity of Farming being taught as 

 a Science as well as a Practical Art. 

 The question is frequently asked, what forms a 

 useful and a thorough education for the farming 

 community ? The answer is, that in early years 

 they should be taught the theory and practice of 

 that employment which in conjunction with their 

 social rights and duties shall become their busi- 

 ness, that is, the means of livelihood, respectabil- 

 ity and happiness in after life. Even in Eui-ope 

 the want of a radical change in their systems of 

 instruction is felt to be of paramount interest, and 

 is warmly advocated by their best writers. " We 

 advocate," says the London and Westminster 

 Quarterly Review, " both for England and Ireland 

 the necessity of a national provision for the mor- 

 al and industrious training of the young; schools 

 are wanted, not such as are n.iw spreading over 

 the country to teach a little reading and writing 

 as if that embraced the whole business of life 

 and the whole duly of man, but schools in which 

 both boys and girls should learn to employ both 

 their heads nnd their hands— in which they should 



be taught practically the use of various tools, and 

 which such general information should be im- 

 parted relating to different branches of industry, 

 to the rights and duties of citizens, and to the re- 

 sources of other countries and their own, as 

 would enable them to begin to mount the uphill 

 path they will have to climb in after life with a 

 heart full of hope, and with a spirit of energy 

 and intelligence which no difficulties would over- 

 come." 



And if such a change is called for in Europe, 

 how much more cogent are the reasons which 

 call for a still more thorough change in our own 

 country of America.' It is in vain we look to 

 Europe for precedents; for the education be- 

 stowed upon the working classes there, is design- 

 ed to qualify them for the subordinate stations of 

 society— for labor and obedience as subjects. We 

 ivv people in government, manners and 

 laws,enjoying political and social rights unknown, 

 or at least not recognized in any other part of 

 the world. Shall we be indifferent to our own 

 rights and lose by apathy the most glorious prize 

 ever won by a nation's valor or perfected by its 

 wisdom. 



Society is continually changing its relations, 

 and evolving new rights and duties ; hence what 

 might be considered a thorough education at one 

 period, might with propriety be deemed very de- 

 fective at another, when from a different organi- 

 zation the social elements had assumed a new 

 form. The earlier stages of society are general- 

 ly characterized by the assumption of extensive 

 individual and social rights and few duties : hence 

 from the frequent collisions between right and 

 duty, when all is claimed and nought conceded, 

 the natural state of man has been considered by 

 some philosophers not merely as a state of jeal- 

 ousy and suspicion, but of actual warfare. The 

 intellectual powers and physical energies are of 

 course directed to the best modes of attack and 

 defence, and success in arms is the pathway to 

 honorable distinction. To such an extent had 

 the passion for arms and for war arrived in the 

 twelfth century, that exclusive privileges and 

 prospective rewards were held out to such of the 

 nobility as would study those sciences which 

 confer a value on the learned professions and fa- 

 cilitate commerce. The wealth and energies of 

 the producing classes were the spoils of the vic- 

 tor ; but the sciences were not to be ravished by 

 force, but courted by persuasion. And hence the 

 Arts and Sciences, in the feudal governments of 

 the old world, have always stood in the relations 

 of Slave and Mistress to their noble patrons. In 

 America the situation of the laboring classes is 

 completely reversed. In Europe they are looked 

 down to for supplies ; in America they are looked 

 up to as sources of jiower. There they are to be 

 niouliled into peaceable and industrious subjects 

 minding their own business and letting thoaftairs 

 of government alone ; here into intelligent free- 

 men supplying the resources and controlling the 

 energies of a nation yielding obedience alone to 

 acts of their own legislation, and defending their 

 individual and colicctive rights by their own 

 valor. 



Does not reason, then, point out a diflerent 

 course of instruction tor the two classes ? The 

 welfare of our nation, her resources, her free- 

 dom, her existence, is based upon the intelligence 

 and efficiency of our Farmers. A course of in- 

 struction lor "that class, then, which in other coun- 

 tries might be deemed of secondary or even mi- 

 nor importance, becomes here of the highest 

 consequence. The question to America is, what 

 it would be to Europe, whether their nobility and 

 aristocracy should be educated or ignorant in re- 

 gard to their rights, their duties and their privi- 

 leges, whether the sources of power and the 

 guardians of law and right shall be refined by 

 science and exalted by morals, or debased by ig- 

 norance, prejudice and vice. 



As patrons of Agriculture, the first and the no- 

 blest lif Arts, we are required to bring intelligence 

 and industry to her aid— as legislators for the 

 equal rights of man, we are called upon to study 

 well the controlling influences of the human 

 mind, and the history of those nations and gov- 

 ernments that siill exist around us, as well as 

 those that have existed before us. As soldiers 

 guaranteeing the security of our own rights and 

 the protection of the rights of others, we ought 

 to bo acquainted with the tactics of other powers 



in order to render efficient the defensive opera- 

 tions of our own. 



But as the general principles, if not well tin- 

 derstood and acted upon, are usually conceded, 

 and writers upon the subject have been requested 

 to go more into detail, I wiU with all due defer- 

 ence to higher and more competent authorities 

 offer my own opinions on the subject under con- 

 sideration. As calculation serves not only to dis- 

 cipline tlie mind, but enters into all the business 

 concerns of life af\er learning to read and write, 

 I would recommend the Mental Arithmetic, and 

 as soon as convenient the Practical Arithmetic for 

 study ; Philosophy as the science of cause and 

 eflfect, with illustrations ; Analyzing, Engineering 

 and Surveying, as practical studies. 



Every farmer ought to be able to make a geo- 

 metrical, botanical, mineralogioal and geological 

 survey of his farm, to analyze its constituent 

 principles with these passive compounds that 

 surround him, and be a suflScient engineer to un- 

 derstand the principle of dynamics, or those 

 powers which may be brought to his aid or are 

 within his control, of mechanics or appliances, 

 and of statics or weights to be removed or resis- 

 tances to be overcome. Farming then might be 

 studied under the heads of Agrestic and Domes- 

 tic Economy ; the former divided into Agricul- 

 ture, Arboriculture, Floriculture and Horticulture, 

 and the latter into building, procuring water, stor- 

 ing provisions, preparing food and drink, breed- 

 ing and training Domestic Animals, Manufactur- 

 ing and Accounts. Analytical and Synthetical 

 Chemistry should be practically illustrated on the 

 farm and in the house. If to this we add a 

 knowledge of the history and varieties, habits and 

 improvement of those animals tamed or that may 

 be tamed to our use, as well as of those, particu- 

 _ rly the insect tribes, that annoy us ; with the 

 elements of Meteorology and Veterinary, and the 

 principles of our Government and of tactics, and 

 render these sciences and arts practical by exam- 

 ple as well as by precept, we give to the produ- 

 cing classes an education suited to the elevated 

 station their rank and importance demands in so- 

 ciety, preparing them for skilftil farmers and ar- 

 tisans, sound legislators and able commanders. 



Years nre spent in acquiring a knowledge of 

 the sciences, not with a design of applying them 

 to the arts, but with the intention generally of 

 taxing the produce of labor for the support of the 

 learned professions. Our scholars are not gen- 

 erally practical men; they possess frequently 

 much abstract theory, very little of which is re- 

 ducible to the practical purposes of life ; while 

 our artisans many times possess a good share of 

 practical experience with very little of those sci- 

 ences which teach the rationale of their trade, and 

 which would guide to speedy and succegsful re- 

 sult, operations now attended with much risque 

 and frequent failure. Many a scholar who now 

 appears dull and inattentive to speculative theo- 

 ries, would be highly interested in the philosophy 

 of his own business and the chemistry of his 

 daily synthetical combinations. Many who care 

 not whether Saturn is nine hundred miles or nine 

 hundred leagues from the sun, would like well 

 to know how to secure a wall pressed by a bank 

 of earth against the frost, or a clay bank in a 

 road from being miry in the spring of the year. 



Our scliools,"our books, our teachers, all re- 

 quire reform. A teacher studying to get rid of 

 vvork, is certainly placed in an awkward predica- 

 ment to superintend the education of those des- 

 tined to labor for a livelihood with views and 

 maxims perfectly discordant in their tendency 

 and application, the one to become an oracle in 

 science or a bright star in the literature of his 

 country, writing essays tor the magazines, or 

 novels"for the gratification of a morbid curiosity ; 

 the others in the beautiful and expressive phrase- 

 ology of the schools to be hewers of wood and 

 drawers of water all their lives, bearers of bur- 

 dens for the gratification of the rich, and dupes to 

 the speculative genius of the learned. The result 

 is, as might have been anticii)ated, a rapid litera- 

 ture, a defective system of defence, public spirit 

 degraded into party violence and productive la- 

 bor depressed by the co-operation of its own 

 energies. M. F. MORRISON. 



Bath, N. H. 



HALF an ounce of alum in ))owder, will purify 

 completely twelve grllons of corrupted water, 

 imparting no sensible degree of astringency. 



