ADDRESS. 43 



tasteful, and therefore attractive ; and thus make the population of 

 rural districts more dense, and afford increasing facilities for their 

 mental and religious improvement. 



If this is the tendency of agricultural science, I suhmit the ques- 

 tion, if it does not afford the desired remedy for our waning rural 

 parishes. And if there is a remedy here, entirely practicable, in its 

 application, it becomes a matter of vital interest to the Christian and 

 philanthropist to know the best means of disseminating this science. 

 It is a question of life and death with many of these parishes. 



Whatever may be said of the various appliances that have been 

 suggested in this connexion, Farm Schools, State Institutions, Boards 

 of Agriculture, Public Lectures, Agricultural Societies and Journals, 

 the process of making good farmers, must, after all, be much like 

 that of making good Christians. It depends quite as much upon 

 example as upon precept. Show me any process that will establish 

 two or three scientific ftirmers in each of the towns of New England, 

 and I will show you a process that will renovate our whole system of 

 farming. The principles of this science are already taught in some 

 of our colleges, but so far as I am able to learn, there has been no 

 very large attendance upon the lectures given in this department. 

 And here I would venture to suggest, gentlemen, that county socie- 

 ties, like yours, could hardly make their influence more beneficially 

 felt, than by encouraging a larger attendance upon these lectures. If 

 you could send up annually to these instructions a few young farmers 

 from each of the towns represented here, the happy results would 

 soon be seen on all your broad acres. The great difficulty is, to 

 get the few disciples of improved husbandry well taught, and then to 

 distribute them through the land. They are to be found, already, in 

 a few towns and districts, in sufficient numbers to work the needed 

 reform in their several spheres of influence. There is a surplus of 

 them around some favored cities and villages, where agricultural 

 journals and fairs and good markets abound. Oh for some mighty 

 persecution to arise, that would scatter them among Medes and Par- 

 thians, Elamites and Macedonians, so that every dweller upon our 

 hillsides, and in our valleys, might hear, in his own tongue, and not 

 far from his own fireside, the truths of Scientific Husbandry. Such 

 a scattering of the truth would make converts to improved agricul- 

 ture, more rapidly than any other process. But we are to look for 

 no Pentecost, in our reformation, and must be content to make the 

 best use of the means we now have, and secure better as soon as we 



