64 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



stock, our farm implements, and modes of culture ! 

 Has it failed to increase the farm products of any one 

 county, of a respectable population, to the amount 

 of the total expenditure ? Or has it failed to return 

 ihto the treasury, every year, the gross amount of 

 that expenditure, in the form of canal tolls upon the 

 increased productions of the soil? We do not put 

 these questions because we have any doubts in the 

 matter, but to bring the subject home to the calm 

 and deliberate consideration of those reflecting men 

 whose duty and interest it is to scan, to judge, and 

 to act wisely upon a question of momentous impor- 

 tance to our country. If these men think with us, 

 that the law of 1819 has amply remunerated the 

 state for its expenditure on the increased tolls on 

 our canals, and that it has added millions to the 

 value of our annual agricultural products, they will 

 not hesitate to renew that policy which has been 

 productive of so much public good. The improve- 

 ments of the last eighteen years might have been 

 respectable without the aid of that law ; but it was 

 that which gave a new impetus to improvement. 

 The fairs and exhibitions which it produced taught 

 our farmers that there was ye't much to learn in 

 their business ; that they could improve in their 

 farm stock, in their farm implements, in theif seeds, 

 and in their modes of culture ; and many of them 

 resolutely determined to profit, and did profit, by the 

 lessons of instruction which they then imbibed. And 

 when the spirit of improvement has begun, it is like 

 civil revolution ; it seldom retrogrades. One im- 

 provement leads to others as naturally as the active 

 mind, having attained to one branch of knowledge, 

 aspires to other and higher branches. Our Southern 

 brethren say we are in advance of them greatly in 

 agricultural improvement. If this is so, we owe it 

 to the law that was passed, upon Gov. Clinton's rec- 

 ommendation, in 1819. 

 It requires no science, and very little art, to weai 



