38 



confidently hope that the result will be the extinction of th€S4 

 prejudices, and the rapid diffusion of useful knowledge, among 

 all classes of agriculturalists? 



Another cause, v.'hich has hitherto retarded improvements is 

 agriculture, is the low estimation in which the employment ha? 

 been held. " In the most flourishing and happy era of the Ro- 

 man Republic, the cultivators of the soil were esteemed a supe- 

 rior class to merchants and manufacturers." This was probably 

 one cause of the great success in agriculture, which at that time 

 enabled ^' the small vale of Campania alone (not one twentieth of 

 the whole) to furnish subsistence for more people than the 

 whole inhabitants of Italy now amount to." It is not however 

 good policy for any nation to make invidious distinctions among 

 the several classes of her citizens. The honest and industrious 

 professional man, artist, mechanic, merchant, or manufacturer^, 

 deserves well of his country. 



*' Honour and shame from no condition rise, 

 " Act well your part, there all the honour lies." 



But if it be a fact that husbandry has been, in this counlry^ 

 hy raan}^, considered a mean or servile employment, it be- 

 comes the duty of every good citizen to end3avour to raise its 

 reputation to the rank it ought to hold, a rank inferior to none 

 in society. Nothing would have a more direct tendency to 

 improve agriculture, and raise its reputation, than a more gener- 

 al attention among farmers to those sciences, that explain many 

 of its principles and operations. *^ Knowledge is power." The 

 man, who understands philosophically the operations in which 

 he is employed, will perform them with much greater ease, than 

 one who has only a mechanical acquaintance with them. It is 

 granted that practice alone is much better than theory without 

 practice, but it is the union of both in the same individual that 

 constitutes the most accomplished and successful operator. 



The opinion has been too prevalent among farmer?, that the 

 only learning beneficial to those, who are to get their living by 

 cultivating the soil, i^ to be able to read well, write well, and 

 answer with facility questions in the most useful rules in arith- 

 P)elic. It is aclinowledged, thqt; with these acquisitions onlj 



