36 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Feb. 



a monument which will cost over a million, and be 

 five hundred feet or more in height ; but to Wa.sh- 

 iNOTON the farmer, notliiug is done except to permit 

 the once fine estate of Mount Vernon to grow up in 

 briars, bushes, and pines, a harbor for wild beasts. 

 All foreigfucrs reproach us for our national disrespect 

 of the home and the grave of the " Father of his 

 country." What with the ten millions a year ex- 

 pended on the army, the ten millions expended on the 

 navy, and the nearly twenty millions given to politi- 

 cians, it seems extraordinary that a nation of farmers 

 can not afford the few dollars necessary to make the 

 estate of the great and good Washington an exper- 

 imental or a model farm. 



Including appropriations of public lands for the 

 children, grand-children, and great grand-children of 

 those that served with Gen. Wayne in the Indian 

 wars, and in all the wars since his time, with slight 

 exceptions ; grants for railroads ; and money voted 

 for the ordinary expenses of the Government; the 

 first session of the present Congress expended $100,- 

 000,000. For twenty years the writer has tried to 

 create a public sentiment in favor of appropriating 

 the whole national domain to the sacred cause of 

 popular education. The proceeds should be expen- 

 ded by each State as the New York Legislature was 

 persuaded to apply its share of the U. S. surplus 

 revenue. Although the landed security was defect- 

 ive in some counties, nevertheless the four millions 

 received from the national treasury will do incalcu- 

 lable good after every man who nobly aided in making 

 the sum a part of cur common school fund, is no 

 longer among the living. We have urged the appro- 

 priation of the public lands, in the manner indicated, 

 on legislators at the capitol of South Carolina, at the 

 capitol of Georgia, at the capitol of Illinois, at the 

 capitol of New York, and at the capitol of the Re- 

 public ; but it has been like " calling spirits from the 

 vasty deep." Popular education is a most unpopular 

 measure, so far as the wild lands of the United States 

 are involved in the question. The higher education 

 of farmers, so that there might be half as many of 

 this class as of lawyers in Congress and the civil 

 employments of government, has long appeared to us 

 an object of importance. 



The first executive message in our history, that 

 contains the word " manure," is the recent one from 

 President Fillmore, which seems something like an 

 acknowledgment that there is such a substance, and 

 that it is worthy of a little consideration. Although 

 the importations of manure (guano) in 1849 reached 

 only 11,760 tons, the trade promises to be twice as 

 large in the current year. About $60,000 worth of 

 this article is sold per annum in the District of 

 Columbia, while there is annually wasted in the same 

 District ft] 00,000 worth of nightsoil. We wanted 

 the trifle of )?200 to experiment on several European 

 methods of deodorizing and drying this substance, in 

 order to publish the results in the agricultural part 

 of the Patent Office report ; but not a dollar could 

 be had. President-making, not the best plan for 

 preparing and using the food of plants, is the leading 

 idea in Washington. In twenty years from this 

 time a different feeling will exist in Congress and 

 most State Legislatures, in reference to the science 

 of rural economy. The careful study of soils, of 

 cultivated plants, of domestic animals, and rural 

 aflfairs in general, will some day be as highly es- 

 teemed in this country, as tiie study of Greek and 

 Latin now is. After a pretty thorough investigation 



of this subject, with advantages for reaching a cor- 

 rect conclusion enjoyed by few, we do not expect 

 that the number employed in impoverishing Ameri- 

 can soils will diminish in twenty-five years. The 

 improvers of arated land will a little more than double 

 in that length of time ; but the number of poor farm- 

 ers will remain nearly stationary. We ought to have 

 a National Agricultural Society, to bring together 

 and excite a cordial union in the feelings of all agri- 

 culturists throughout the empire. The friends of 

 rural improvement measurably throw away their 

 labors by isolated and independent efforts. A more 

 extended organization, operating over the whole 

 Union, can render the cause an invaluable service. 

 This would bring thousands of good men true into 

 line, and many sections which most need waking up, 

 might be reached by the reports and proceedings of 

 this national association. It should be independent 

 of government, except Congress might aid in print- 

 ing, as the Legislature of New York does for its 

 State Society. Without an efficient system, steadily 

 pursued by those that appreciate its benefits, public 

 opinion can never be brought up to that high standard 

 of skillful farming which such gentlemen as Prof. 

 Johnston expect to witness from our great and 

 peculiar advantages. Instead of being far behind 

 English and Scotch farmers — growing fifteen bushels 

 of wheat where they would harvest thirty — we should 

 excel all civilized nations in the excellence of our 

 improved lands, of our crops, and our domestic ani- 

 mals. To achieve this distinction, we have only to 

 will it. What is oar much boasted self-government 

 worth, if we can not use it for useful as well as 

 ornamental purposes ? Washington, the President 

 of the Convention that framed the Constitution, 

 labored to place agriculture on its true basis in ref- 

 erence to government patronage ; but, alas, his 

 countrymen have repudiated his wisdom in this mat- 

 ter. There are hundreds who ought to know better, 

 that deny the right of Congress to foster improve- 

 ments in agriculture in any way whatever. There 

 are still more who admit the right to act, but deny 

 the expediency of our attempting to keep pace with 

 Denmark, Russia, and Prussia, in the art and science 

 of grain-culture. If one having a taste for rural 

 science, should undertake to demonstrate by analysis 

 and by practice, that one kind of mold is really worth 

 ten times more than another for growing wheat, (as 

 is the fact,) it would take him a long lifetime to com- 

 municate the information to one-half of the wheat- 

 growers in the United States. How could he possi- 

 bly reach them ? They neither see nor care to see 

 any agricultural journal ; they know notliing of agri- 

 cultural societies, their transactions, nor of Patent 

 Office reports. There are over a million of Amer- 

 ican farmers in this condition. How are they to be 

 reached? Only by cheap papers universally distrib- 

 uted. We have beep endeavoring to do our part ia 

 this respect. We furnish a paper so cheap that the 

 price can deter none from reading it ; and yet we 

 think the richest and the ablest may peruse it with 

 profit. We also euJearor to make it attractive and 

 interesting to the young ; and we rejoice at the evi- 

 dence we are constantly receiving that we are not 

 laboring in vain. There are those who are steadily 

 laboring to improve themselves and their neighbors, 

 by spreading agricultural information, thus elevating 

 our system of agriculture ; and though they may bo 

 unknown to fame, they are no less the benefactora 

 of their country. 



