n 



is true in regard to them ? It has been ascertained to 

 a certainty that of those who enter into commercial pur- 

 suits, from ninety to ninety-five out of one hundred fail 

 in business; while of those who engage in the practice 

 of agriculture, about ninety-six in every hundred succeed. 

 And why is this ? In the first place extravagant notions 

 prevail among mercantile men. The amount of busi- 

 ness done is out of all proportion to the capital em- 

 ph)yed. High rents, a large retinue of clerks, the sale 

 of goods without proper discrimination, all tend to 

 produce a state of things which generally brings failure, 

 disappointment and distress upon themselves and others. 



How different is agricultural life. He who is not 

 able to purchnse a farm can rent one, and is most sure 

 of success. What he produces will always bring money. 

 The inducements for wild speculation are not to be found. 

 He is free from the harrassing perplexity, which is so 

 common an attendant of commercial life. 



How remarkably strange it is that so many of our 

 sons become disgusted with rural life, leave the home 

 of their youth, the farm that has nurtured them, forsak- 

 ing the tilling of the soil for what they erroneously 

 suppose to be an easier and more respectable calling. 



Are we not satisfied that the agricultural interest is 

 paramount to all others ? Has not the time come when 

 the Commonwealth and our nation should become more 

 interested in the advancement of agricultural science? 

 There is no department in all our national relations 

 which Congress has regarded with so little favor as the 

 advancement of agricultural science. 



Seldom has there been an appropriation made, with 

 the exception of a few hundred dollars for foreign and 



3 



