MR. perry's address, 13 



Another obstacle in the way of agricultural improvement, is 

 a too general impression entertained that learning is of little ad- 

 vantage in the business of a farmer's life. Were it not for ob- 

 servations on other subjects which I wish for special reasons to 

 make, I should like to dwell a little time on this point. As it is, 

 I must content myself by observing, that in my apprehension 

 there is no other employment in which there is a constant de- 

 mand for manual labor, where there is so loud a call for the aids 

 of science, or where the suggestions of a well-instructed mind 

 would prove a more efficient help. For proof of the correctness 

 of this opinion, I have no occasion to go beyond the limits of this 

 county, or out of the catalogue of the members of this Society. 

 Were I to train a child for the labors of the field, my first care 

 would be to make him familiar not perhaps with either ancient 

 or modern languages, though if possessed of common sense they 

 would do him no hurt, yet with the physical sciences ; in all 

 which I would have him as carefully instructed as if he were to 

 go into professional fife. Knowledge is power, power in the field 

 as well as in the senate-house, power over matter as well as over 

 mind. 



A further hindrance to improvement in husbandry is found in 

 the fact, that whatever exertions a man may make to keep his 

 own fields free from insects, noxious plants and whatever is 

 destructive to vegetation, it can be only of partial and temporary 

 advantage, because in the neglected lands of his neighbor a new 

 and unfailing recruit will be reared up every returning season. 

 The field of the slothful will be grown over with thorns and the 

 face of it covered with nettles. It would be well were there no 

 sluggards in the land, and it would be happy if many who are not 

 sluggards were sufficiently apprised of the advantages which 

 would accrue to themselves and neighbors, did they suffer no 

 noxious weed or devouring insect to find shelter about them. 

 He who suffers his own fields to be filled with hurtful vegeta- 

 tion, or his trees to be devoured by destructive insects, does 

 nothing for which the laws of the land can punish him, nothing 

 for which he would be willing to have his neighbor complain, 



