192 



STATE OF AGRICULTURE 



following : First, a want of respect in the agricultural 

 interest for their own profession. There is a feeling 

 in certain portions of the community — principally 

 those who have done nothing to increase the produc- 

 tive capital of the country themselves, and who may 

 be termed the drones of the social compact — that per- 

 sonal labor is disgraceful, and that the cultivator of the 

 soil is little better than a slave. Strange as it may 

 seem, this feeling may be said to be promoted and 

 perpetuated by the conduct of farmers themselves. 

 There are too many men among us — men who have 

 good' farms, and who might employ their sons upon 

 them, with the certainty that honorable competence 

 would be the result — who prefer to see them become 

 poor miserable retailers of tape and sugar candy, or 

 second or third-rate lawyers, — men fit for nothing only 

 to promote litigation, and sow the seeds of strife, and 

 bring into contempt the high principles of right which 

 the law is intended to embody — rather than honest, 

 high-minded, intelligent cultivators of the soil. For 

 this evil — -and it is a serious one — the remedy is Avith 

 the farmer. His sons should be well educated ; but 

 they should be taught to feel — what in fact is the 

 case — that, in the actual dignity and usefulness of 

 their profession, the farmer has few equals, and no 

 superior. 



The second cause of the depressed state of agricul- 

 ture in the United States is the inattention of farmers 

 in selecting the best breeds of animals for their yards, 

 and the best seeds for planting. In these two respects 

 there is the greatest room for improvement ; and the 

 necessity of entering at once upon a course of reform 

 cannot be too earnestly pressed upon our cultivators. 

 Experience has shown that animals can be formed, in 

 the hands of the scientific breeder, to meet the wants, 

 or remedy the defects, of any existing race. Whether 

 it be a beautiful form, weight of carcase, aptitude to 

 fatten, or all these combined in cattle, or the same 



