90 FARMS. 



jeot of the better management of the farm — the whole farm, large 

 or small. How shall the society effect an object so noble as this ? 

 Money will not do it. If thirty dollars — the highest premium, will 

 not produce this effect, probably three hundred would not. Perhaps 

 it is the mortification of a possible failure that stands so terribly in 

 the way of some. And it is easily perceived that one man, in the 

 prospect of a glittering premium, might spend all his income, and a 

 great deal more, in improving his farm, — while another has no 

 " great deal more " to lay out, and must live out of what he has, if 

 he lives at all. Who gets most iyicome from least expense? is the 

 true question. But the farmer of ample means in pursuit of a daz- 

 zling premium is cut off in his own judgment by such a principle in 

 making awards, — while the one of hmited means, from the very 

 nature of his circumstances, is precluded from making many of 

 those important improvements which the society wishes to encourage. 



The foregoing considerations, (in the absence of materials for 

 making a Report,) may aid the society in determining the question, 

 ■whether the money now offered for farm management may not be 

 either appropriated to some other use, or a portion of it expended 

 in visiting farms under superior management, but whose owners, for 

 some reasons, do not ask for the premiums which are now offered 

 by the Society. 



But to argue the subject a little closer, it may be said that if the 

 grand object of the Agricultural Society is to improve the farms in 

 the county of Essex, and premiums small and great both seem to 

 fail of doing it, — then an appeal to a certain principle of human 

 nature may at least be tried. The State Board of Education ap- 

 pealed to it, and that principle responded. When the first secretary 

 of the Board began his mission among the school districts of the 

 State, and fixed his inquisitorial eye upon the school houses, the 

 pubHc could not bear his gaze ; and in five short years from the 

 time when the Board of Education made their report to the legisla- 

 ture, on the condition of the school houses, the sums expended for 

 new houses and repairs upon old ones, fell but little short of seven 

 hundred thousand dollars ; and for several of the years next suc- 

 ceeding, the sum expended upon school houses was $150,000 an- 

 nually. Now what was the secret of all this change ? Simply that 

 the school houses of that day could not bear a close inspection. 



