540- [Assembly 



We have experimentalists enough, as many as England or France»- 

 who are ready to expend their means liberally for others' benefit as 

 well as their own. The great want is, to induce neighbors to fol- 

 low their example, and adopt their improvements. 



The mind of the farmer is eminently conservative and slow ta 

 change. He hesitates to make any alteration in the mode of culture 

 which he has practiced for years, and which he learned of his father j 

 and there is certainly good reason in his case for great caution in 

 making experiments Others may experiment and invent machines 

 and contrivances in iron, and wood, and brass, and if they fail in 

 rendering them useful, their various parts may serve other purposes, 

 the material is still capable of immediate change and new applica- 

 tion, and without loss of time; but the farmer, if he finds in the fall 

 that his experiment of the spring has been unsuccessful,, must wait 

 through a long year to repair his loss. 



And, indeed, as farmers learn caution and wariness in this respect, 

 so they practice it in most others. Those who have had any occa- 

 sion to observe such things will agree that political opinions, among 

 others, are much more tenaciously adhered to and unwillingly relin- 

 quished in the country than in the city. Those who live in great 

 communities and masses, whose avocations lead them to continual 

 association with others, are more impulsive, ambitious and alert. 

 The farmer, on the other hand, is rather contemplative, distrustful, 

 and attached to old things. With him vm ^n7c is eminently viatuta. 

 It is just and natural, and desirable that this should be so, in some 

 degree. The sudden rush of excited multitudes doubtless needs some 

 check, and this is found, with us, in the steady, deliberate and- cau- 

 tious body of the agriculturists. 



But if it may not be assumed, and icannot be shown by reasoning 

 and argument, that our condition and institutions, which provide 

 neither for very large nor very small, but for moderate estates, are 

 best adapted to the improvement and elevation of agriculture, to the 

 great object of raising good farmers and good men, as well as good 

 crops, it cannot be denied, that owing to some causes, our country 

 is extremely fortunate in those respects; and if such laws and insti- 

 tutions are not the chief promoters of these results, as most of us be- 

 lieve, at least they appear to offer no hindrance to their attainment. 



The agriculturists of America have a great future before them. 

 It is pretty certain, that for a great number of years, nothing but. 



