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learned mucli more than tliey imparted from their intercourse 

 with the cultivators of the soil, who showed unquestionable proofs 

 of increased reading, reflection, and careful experimenting ; who 

 could explain the facts and the philosophy of growing crops, rais- 

 ing cattle, and the application of manures. Such men uniformly 

 have a good opinion of their calling. They have too much self- 

 respect to degrade it by unworthy and disparaging comparisons 

 with other pursuits. They feel that it is an honorable employ- 

 ment, which, byjudicious management and economy, can be made 

 profitable. Without these opinions they could scarcely follow it 

 themselves or recommend it to their children. 



Third. The increase of books and papers devoted to agricul- 

 ture. Farmers are not afraid, or ashamed, or disinclined to learn 

 from the observations and the experience of others. For the same 

 reason that they would imitate the successful example of a neigh- 

 bor, so far as it was apphcable to their circumstances, they will 

 adopt the same improvement if recorded in a book, and especially 

 if the same result has followed from many recorded experiments. 

 Good farmers have no quarrel with theorists ; for, while they 

 know that most of the truths in agriculture are the results of prac- 

 tice, of trials made for ages by men who knew nothing of the phi- 

 losophy which underlaid them, yet they are sufficiently intelligent 

 to admit that they can work more successfully as well as more 

 satisfactorily if they can understand that philosophy, — if they can 

 trace effects to their causes, — if they can ascertain the precise 

 connection between various soils and the crops that would flourish 

 best upon them, — if they could determine the exact value of each 

 kind of manure, and the land to which it was most adapted. 

 These and similar things are what they desire to know. Hence 

 they study agricultural books and papers, and while they receive 

 the results of others' studies and labors with characteristic caution, 

 they are not slow to adopt whatever promises to be useful ; for, 

 if pecuniary gain is their great motive to labor, they are aware 

 that they must choose the true principles of culture, and follow 

 the certain laws of nature as those laws have been ascertained by 

 careful observation and expounded by science. They are disposed 

 to ask not with how little information we can get along, but what 

 is the best method of reaping the reward of labor bestowed upon 

 the earth ? 



There are many, substantially, of this kind, who admit that 

 " there are no accidents in nature. What we fancy such are the 

 offspring of ignorance." Agriculture, like every thing else, is 

 governed by certain laws, the right knowledge and observance of 

 which are the only conditions of success. 



The fourth evidence of the progress of agriculture in the county, 

 is the actual increase of the value of farms. We do not refer 

 solely to cash value in the market, in these times of pecuniary 



