INTELLECT IN FARMING. 73 



would become one vast stagnant reservoir. God has wisely 

 ordered that there should be a constant circulation of water. 

 Like money, it is only good for something when current. So it 

 is with thought. It should be kept in constant circulation. 

 Farmers, as a class, are accused of being taciturn, slow of 

 speech, and still slower at writing. It is true that they do not 

 make so much noise in the world as politicians, and we are in- 

 clined to think it is true also that they do not accustom them- 

 selves to public speaking and writing for the press as they 

 should. There is no reason in the world why the farmer should 

 not address his fellow-citizens as well as the lawyer or the cler- 

 gyman. He has ideas, and expresses them to his family and 

 neighbors ; why should he not express them to a number of 

 families assembled together ? The only possible reason is the 

 want of practice. He has not that discipline acquired by exer- 

 cise that will enable him to think consecutively as he stands up 

 before an audience. Nowhere do our thoughts run so rapidly 

 as when we stand on the platform to address a body of men 

 without any manuscript for a guide. In our first attempt it is 

 like driving a pair of colts without bits and reins. We hardly 

 know whether we are in the body or out, on the earth or in the 

 air. Phaeton, guiding the horses of the sun, could not have 

 been more bewildered. With a little practice all this passes 

 away. And here let me recommend the farmers' club as the 

 best place in which public speaking can be practised, and the 

 habit acquired of communicating to others what we know. The 

 subjects discussed there are those in which all farmers are or 

 should be at home. There need be little formality. The 

 speaker is among his friends and neighbors, who have assembled 

 to compare notes, and are desirous of receiving all possible 

 information — not of criticizing the mode in which it is imparted. 

 If a man can tell us how to raise two bushels of corn where we 

 now raise one, we care not whether he speaks good or bad Eng- 

 lish. He may talk quick if he pleases, if he only communicates 

 the idea. We have great faith in farmers' clubs, not only as a 

 means of acquiring knowledge, but also as a school of practice 

 for imparting it. If you will pardon an illusion to my individ- 

 ual experience, I will say that I have been a member of such a 

 club for the past ten years, and have made it a matter of con- 

 science to be present at its meetings. Our practice has been to 

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