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lectures, essays, discussions, books and periodicals, they can not 

 only keep the subject before the minds of the people, but diffuse 

 such information as the labors and researches of the most distin- 

 guished apjriculturists have thrown before the public ? Then, 

 again, it will afford an admii-able opportunity to suggest, institute 

 and report experiments, which will give greater promise of excit- 

 ing attention, than when simply recorded in the paper, which you 

 carelessly read and as carelessly lay aside. 



And what seems to me to be of as much importance as any 

 other advantage of such an organization, it will afford an opportu- 

 nity and medium of securing the presence, in the town, of some 

 scientific and practical man, who is acquainted with both the 

 theory and practice of farming, the constituent properties of 

 manure, fertilizers and soils, and the best mode of adapting the 

 one to the other, and who would be thus prepared to impart that 

 practical information, which the farmer so much needs. You 

 want professional counsel, when yourself or a member of your 

 family is sick, when you have a case in court, when you Avould 

 invest money, when you are about to erect an expensive building. 

 You have no less need of such " counsel" on that very important 

 question : IIoiv shall I best and most pro fitahly manage m^y farm ? 

 Such a counsellor, well qualified for his business, by an accurate 

 knowledge of both the theory and the practice, would annually 

 enhance the profits of your farming by hundreds, if not thousands 

 of dollars. Such an organization would open the minds of its 

 members to the value of such " professional" help, and, at the 

 same time, facilitate the way of securing it. 



Farming presents demands, on account of the rising gene- 

 ration. The present and future well-being of our sons and daugh- 

 ters depends very much upon the manner in which we answer 

 these demands. And here Ave have a legitimate illustration of 

 the close connection between the physical and spiritual relations 

 of human life, the sacred and secular departments of human 

 thought and pursuit, — of the fact, that oftentimes the best method 

 of taking care of the soul is rightly to treat the body. If our 

 previous survey is correct, then we have reached this conclusion, 

 that for the physical, intellectual and moral culture of the human 

 system, nothing seems so avcII adapted as the care and labor of 

 the farm. It prolongs life, gives health, strength and vigor to the 

 body, is favorable to the improvement of the mind, the culture of 

 the heart. The dangers to the person, character and prospects, 

 for this life and that which is to come, are less on the farm, than 

 on the heaving and uncertain sea of professional or mercantile, 

 manufacturing or mechanic life. Could I by directing public 

 attention to the subject, in any degree, remove these false notions, 

 to which I have referred, and help forward the good cause, already 

 auspiciously entered upon, of making farming pleasant, profitable 



