SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 



Some ot the Obstacles which have Impeded the Progress 

 OF Agriculture, and the Mode in which its Improvement 

 CAN Specially be Promoted. 



[Extract from an Address by Rev. Milton P. Braman, at the last Fair of the 

 Essex Agricultural Society.] 



I. The situation and employment of the farmer have not 

 hitherto furnished him with that stimuhis to mental activity 

 and effort, which has been applied to many other classes. Agri- 

 cultural operations are so simple as to require no great exercise 

 of ingenuity and length of practice to learn to perform them. 

 The spade, the plough, the scythe, the sickle, demand no long 

 apprenticeship, little teaching and a small degree of dexterity 

 to acquire a competent use of them. The modes and seasons 

 of planting, sowing, reaping, gathering, when once ascertained, 

 can be comprehended in a very short time by the most moder- 

 ate capacity. Every boy in rural places learns the current 

 practice without any effort of attention, or direct teaching, by 

 observing what he cannot avoid seeing, and as a matter of 

 course, just as he acquires the knov/ledge of trees and stones, 

 and earth and water, and the obvious effects of sun and rain; 

 and the most common objects and processes about him. 

 Strength of muscle and bone, and the power of hardy endur- 

 ance, are more essential for the ordinary processes of farm 

 labor, than natural ingenuity or skilful training. But the case 

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