A 1) U It K S S . 31 



But, to be more specific, scientific agriculture is economical to 

 society, Inj adding to its general intelligence. In the education, I 

 have pointed out, there is a kirge amount of intellectual training. 

 The tillers of the soil form a large majority of our population, and 

 from the vastness and fertility of our territory, they always must be a 

 majority. While we have free institutions, they must either rule the 

 country, or suffer it to be ruled, through their political leaders. Ele- 

 vate this class, by instructing them, in the science of their business, 

 and you have changed the ruling influence of the country. Almost 

 from the beginning of our government, farmers have been an immense 

 political machine, in the hands of a few men of intelligence, and 

 through this machine, the educated few have shaped the measures and 

 policy of the government. Any demagogue, that knew enough to 

 flatter their prejudices against wealth and aristocracy, and to call 

 them the bold yeomanry, the bone and sinew of the country, has been 

 enabled to crawl into power, and to use it for his own, rather than 

 for his country's good. Educate this class in their business, and the 

 reign of demagogues and political mountebanks will be over. The 

 man who comprehends the difference in the staple that covers sheep, 

 wall be able to discriminate between the wool and the cotton of pol- 

 iticians. The man who rests his agricultural creed upon his own 

 experience and knowledge, rather than that of his father, will not 

 leave his political faith in the keeping of Jonathan Buncome, Esq., 

 M. C. for his district. The policy of our national administrations, 

 will no longer be a shuttlecock between free trade and protection, 

 A political economy for the farm, will be discovered, by clear-headed 

 men, and will shape, uniformly, political action at Washington. Ev- 

 ery interest of society is better cared for, and has more ample protec- 

 tion and patronage, from our government, than that of agriculture ; 

 and that, too, in the face of the fact, that farmers are the majority,, 

 own eighty-five per cent, of the property of the country, and contrib- 

 ute, directly, to the prosperity of all classes. Why do our ships of 

 commerce, and our navy, any more need a secretary to care for them,, 

 than our farms ? Why do our guns and fortifications need a govern- 

 ment officer, to stand sentinel over them, more than our rich harrests, 

 which are a thousand foldj,more exposed to plunder ? If the govern- 

 ment's gold needs a treasurer, to keep it, why should the wealth of 

 the soil — gold in another shape, and a thousand times more valuable, 

 — be left without a government guardian ? This anomalous state of 

 things, at our political metropolis, is beginning to awaken the atten- 

 tion of farmers, and must needs be reformed. . 



