148 ON FARM-YARD MANAGEMENT. 



less help than others ? It has, to be sure, by its own 

 life-supporting power, felled the forest of the west, and 

 converted the howling wilderness into fertile fields ; 

 but it has not yet succeeded in rendering us inde- 

 pendent of other nations for the very staff of life. 

 The fact alone that bread stuffs to a large amount 

 were lately imported from Nova Scotia and elsewhere, 

 would saem. to call upon the government in the loudest 

 terms to embrace the patriotic and popular measure of 

 encouraging agriculture. Individual enterprise has 

 done much for the cause, by disseminating among us, 

 by means of periodicals, the results of experiments and 

 good advice in every department of farming. But 

 these means of information are very limited in their 

 circulation. The attachment to old habits, the dislike 

 to book-farming, and the utter ignorance of what is 

 going on in the agricultural world, are also serious 

 drawbacks to improvement, which it is feared nothing 

 can remedy but the formation of agricultural societies 

 in every county of the state, under the patronage of 

 the government. 



Under such a system, the results of good farming 

 and an improved state of culture would be brought 

 home to every man. Knowledge would be more 

 generally diffused, and great improvements consequent- 

 ly made in every branch of rural economy. Discove- 

 ries in agriculture are continually making, and must 

 continue to be made ad infinitum, for no limits can be 

 assigned to the capabilities of the earth in producing 

 the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life. There 

 seems no end to the improvement of the qualities and 

 perfections of domestic animals, yet how few of our 

 common farmers are aware of these facts ! They know 

 little or nothing of the principles of vegetation, or of 

 the management and effect of the different kinds of 

 manure ; nor have they any very clear ideas on the 

 subject of breeding the different kinds of domestic 

 animals. 



Until a spirit of emulation is ai'oused, by means of 



