No. 216.] 527 



been immediately turned from the field of agriculture to some other, 

 and, as has been erroneously supposed, more favorable department 

 for the exercise ol his faculties. 



When a farmer has discovered in one of his sons a taste for 

 knowledge and an inclination to study, he has set hira apart for one 

 of the professions. When he has detected in another, manifestations 

 of his genius in the construction of curious things, he has desig- 

 nated him for an artisan; the residue, he has said, were stupid fel- 

 lows, would never make any thing of consequence, and were good 

 for nothing but to work on a farm. This of course has led the 

 youthful aspirants to despise the occupation of their father, and to 

 really feel that it was an employment unworthy their talent, and re- 

 quiring nothing but the exercise of muscular power. 



Such mistakes and false notions have entered so much into the 

 elements of public opinion on this subject, that to them may be as- 

 cribed much of that well-known reluctance of farmers to adopt new 

 things, or to make their business a matter of study or scientific in- 

 vestigation. 



To find the origin of such prejudices and erroneous notions, is to 

 do much towards removing them; such origin appears to me to be 

 chiefly this: that farmers are usually brought up under circumstances 

 where, from youth, they gradually and by insensible progress be- 

 come familiar with the usual routine of farming; and never having 

 regarded it as a matter of study, or as requiring science or any 

 thing but physical labor, they appear to be unconscious that any 

 thing more than the mere use of implements has been learned, or is 

 to be learned about it. 



Those who continued in that employment, soon become attached 

 to their old forms and usages, and guarding them with a jealous 

 eye, delight in being able to look back and say that they have not 

 departed from the ways of their fathers. They recognize no means 

 of increase other than an increase of toil, and a labor-saving 

 machine, for a long time, is treated by them with suspicion, as 

 being an instrument of idleness and for the encouragement of lazi- 

 ness. 



Now, the first thing to be done, to improve the condition of agri- 

 culture, is to remove this load of prejudice, which obscures the 

 understanding and darkens the pathway of those on whom it hangs. 

 Until this be done, the effect of other means must be chiefly lost. 



