MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 767 



press upon the Board, the importance of devising some meas- 

 ures to diffuse this iinowledge more generally among the 

 people. 



One thing is obvious. Something must be done to counter- 

 act the prejudice which at present exists in the minds of our 

 young men against farming. The profession is unpopular, 

 and agriculture, over a vastly preponderating extent of our 

 territory, is not only unpopular, but to great numbers unprofit- 

 able. Our farms are rapidly deteriorating, and every year 

 beholds thousands and tens of thousands of our most intelli- 

 gent and enterprising husbandmen selling out and moving 

 either into our cities or to the far West. 



But it will be said that this should not be regarded as a 

 calamity. Why ? Because the fewer the tillers, the higher 

 the price of their products. But will such sophistry silence the 

 apprehensions of the statesman ? I think not. Those who 

 forsake their farms are, in nine cases out of ten, the most 

 industrious and intelligent of their class ; they have become 

 disgusted, — partly, it is true, in consequence of their incapacity 

 to lay up money, — and their example is before the rising gene- 

 ration. Few young men who can obtain a clerkship, or a 

 position behind the counter of a grocery or dry goods store, in 

 a factory or on a steamboat, will think of laboring on a farm. 

 There is something disgraceful even in the idea. But throw 

 open the doors of science ; exhibit to them the beauties and 

 capacities of this shamefully neglected branch of industrial 

 life, and the tables will soon be turned. Let us have Liebigs 

 and Loudons, Davys and JefTersons, issuing from our agricul- 

 tural colleges, and charming the world with the eloquence of 

 their lore, and let these men and their sons cleave to the soil, 

 and who then will point at the farmer as a fit object for 

 ridicule and reproach ? 



The objects of agricultural education, therefore, should not 

 only embrace the improvement of the soil, but, by an ulterior 

 or secondary action, the reclamation of the popular mind from 

 the errors into which it has been urged by the neglects of the 

 farmer. 



There is an all-powerful instinct implanted in man's nature 

 which impels him irresistibly to pursue that which is most 

 honorable in the world's esteem. And in the present economy 



