THE FARMER'S CONFLICT. 7T 



Out of this number of practical men .came Cavour, who, in 

 the intervals of his public life, was the most successful farmer 

 of modern Italy ; and Mechi, whose practical operations, as re- 

 corded, have become one of the text-books of farming ; and 

 Marshall, who learned to manage his own lands, and who de- 

 clared that " attendance and attention will make any man a 

 farmer;" and John Johnston, who has taught us all how to 

 raise wheat on drained lands ; and Farmentier, who was obliged 

 to turn farmer before he could overcome popular prejudice and 

 introduce the potato into France. From among their numbers 

 have come the clear-sighted, quick-witted workers, who have 

 made immediate application of every good suggestion, and have 

 brought agriculture to a high standard. To them belongs espe- 

 cially that class, who, having acquired their knowledge, repro- 

 duce it in some useful form for the practical benefit of mankind ; 

 that class whose minds are not so burdened with theories, that 

 when the moment for action comes, they lose sight of the very 

 object for which their theories were constructed. 



It is to such as these that we owe the early construction of 

 our social and civil fabric, and the existence and early prosperity 

 of our country. They were thriving farmers, and with the ex- 

 ception of a limited commerce, they held in their hands all the 

 resources of our country. They carried our country through 

 the Revolutionary war — " the embattled farmers," as the poet 

 calls them. Year after year they toiled on, clad in their house- 

 hold manufactures, laboring on the soil with their own hands, 

 by prudence and economy constantly increasing their own 

 wealth and developing the wealth of the republic which they 

 had founded. They led lives of usefulness, and left behind 

 them, on every hillside and in every valley in our State, the 

 broad and thrifty farms which even now bear witness to their 

 sagacity in selecting land and their skill in cultivating it. They 

 had neither agricultural school nor society nor newspaper to 

 guide them ; and were they alive to-day, they might well inquire 

 why all this intellectual effort is put forth to accomplish what 

 they accomplished simply by obedience to the natural laws of 

 earth and sky. 



Now, if we have what they had not, they had what we have not. 

 Their soil was as fresh and fertile as the vegetable and mineral 

 accumulations of centuries could make it. They required but 



