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and other events of the future. I might prophecy too of 

 agricultural schools and colleges to come, of a generation 

 of farmers versed in the principles of chemistry, learned 

 in geological formations, familiar through personal analy- 

 sis, with the nature and elements of different soils, and 

 testing the experiments they have read, in the winter 

 laboratory and study. I might censure the folly of teach- 

 ing the children of our common schools in the farming 

 districts, (a part of a curious system prevailing in our 

 schools of dwelling on the distant, the nominal, and the 

 useless, and neglecting the vital and the real near at 

 hand,) the productions of Cuba or China, and never in- 

 structing them in the productive qualities of their own 

 native farms ; — the sheer vanity of learning from gram- 

 mars to analyze the elements of language — mere words 

 — while they are left in total ignorance of the elements 

 of the soil whence they are to derive their subsistence. 

 I might sing to you in exultant strains of the good time 

 coming, in the glorious blessed future of our fertile and 

 happy land, when the dignity and grandeur of the far- 

 mer's work shall be fully recognized, and his high rank 

 in the body politic shall be universally felt and acknow- 

 ledged ; and when great, deep-thinking, far-seeing states- 

 men shall drive off the hungry horde of selfish politicians 

 and the rabble of desperate demagogues, and legislate for 

 the benefit and advancement of agriculture, — the interests 

 of that primitive and glorious art that feeds, sustains and 

 bears up the great world ! ! But the flying hour hurries 

 me on. Inspired by love of his calling, with an ardent 

 devotion to its labors ; armed and equipped with intelli- 

 gence, sound information, and scientific method, the farm- 

 er is now prepared to achieve a permanent victory over 

 the unwilling soil, and to win and enjoy the various de- 

 lights and glories of the farmer's life. And first among 

 these delights come great and abundant crops, to feed his 



