NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



237 



"Ibeneficial there, are unprofitable here ; their 



* abject being to save rent, ours to save labor. 

 "I Itdoes not so much concern us to know how 

 '" much we can get from an acre, where land is 



■0 cheap, as how much we can get for a day's 

 '^ work where labor is so dear. The farmer has 

 P much more need than the merchant, to keep a 



* {^oUt and loss account, in all his transactions ; 

 ''• >od it is chiefly for want of it that many young 



and theoretic farmers find agriculture unprolit- 

 able, and many of the old and experienced nev- 

 er abandon the habits of their ancestors, how- 

 ever injurious. — But no wise man will implicit- 

 ly adopt the opinion of another, if he can read- 

 ily test its truth by his own experience. 



Though the great principles of agriculture 

 must remain immutable, so long as God shall 

 please to uphold the present order of nature; 

 /et it must be obvious, that our local situation 

 ■enders the practical knowledge of others of 

 )ut little use to us. It is necessary that we 

 ihould make experiments for ourselves, and 

 iccurately ascertain tho.=e facts, which suit our 

 )articular situation. — We should ascertain, for 

 nstance, whether we have any natural manures 

 »hich we can profitably apply to our lands; 

 vhether our lime be of a salutary or injurious 

 |uality; to what soil it is suitable, and to what 

 irejudicial ; in what quantities it should be used ; 

 —whether we have marie or other like sub- 

 tances ; what soils are most in want of plaister, 

 md, gravel, clay, (raw or burnt,) swamp muck, 

 eat-ashes, Lc. : whether compost or raw ma- 

 ures be in the end most profitable ; in what 

 ircumstances surface and under ground drain- 

 ig and irrigation, will pay the expense; 

 "hether woad, madder, and other dying drugs, 

 ! well as new roots, grains and grasses, will 

 »y the expense of cultivatioa ; which breed 

 :' homed cattle are most inclined to fat, which 



milk, and which is best for labor. 



We want to know the comparative raerit of 

 le different breeds of horses, sheep, and hogs ; 

 je comparative ralue of succulent roots, 

 rains, grasses, and esculent vegetables ; and 

 ■n thousand other things. Now though we may 

 et much light on these subjects from foreign 

 ublications, yet we ought to know them from 

 ur own actual experiments : for though the 

 real Sir Humphrey Davy, and the French 

 hemists, have ably analyzed most of the sub- 

 sets of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms ; 

 et it sometimes happens, that from some un- 

 nown cause, actual experiments in agriculture, 

 not exactly agree with the chemical theory, 

 nd therefore experience must be the only 

 jre guide. This experience we want; and 

 ills is the object of our society. 



But how shall this great and important ob- 

 jct be obtained ? Shall we trust it to the un- 

 onnected exertions of insulated individuals ? 

 :''rue, there have been many who have given 

 3 the subject, a great part of their time and 

 ilents, and are worthy the respect and hom- 

 ge of mankind ; for the man who adds to our 

 reductions one new plant ; to our manures 

 Be new article ; who corrects one error, or 

 ments one machine, hy which the labor now 

 jierformed by rational beings may be transfor- 

 jed to the brute creation and the elements ; 

 lonfers a greater benefit on his race, than all 

 he conquerors who have manured the world 

 .ith blood, from Nimrod to Napoleon. When 

 len shall cease to honor their destroyers, and 

 hall be grateful to their benefactors, the name 



of many a rural Socrates shall be rescued from 

 obscurity; while the name of those scourges of 

 mankind, shall rot in oblivion, or only be re- 

 membered to be execrated. 



" Oil ; spring to light, auspicious day," 

 when the instruments of war shall be con- 

 verted into the implements of husbandry, and 

 mankind shall form one great agricultural so- 

 ciety. But the joyful anticipation of that glo- 

 rious period, which certainly and perhaps soon 

 will arrive, has hurried me frotn my subject. — 

 I ask again ; shall we trust the interests of ag- 

 riculture and its improvement, to individual 

 exertion? Let us remember that though the 

 duration of man's life, may be sufficient for the 

 conquest of the world, it is not long enough 

 for the acquisition of the art of husbandry : and 

 in our present situation we have hardly any 

 means whereby the experience of one may 

 beiictil another or descend to posterity. Now, 

 when a man dies, his knowledge and experi- 

 ence die with him; and all he leaves as a me- 

 morial, is his example in a narrow circle, and 

 his well cultivated farm ; which in one or two 

 generations degenerates to the common level. 

 Search now, and see, if you can find, the farm 

 of Cincinnatus, or of Cato the censor. Alas! 

 the same tide of war has overwhelmed and swept 

 away, as "with the besom of deslrnction," both 

 the Cottage of Virgil and the Villa of Cicero. 

 In vain do we expect great improvement to be de- 

 rived from the labors of solitary individuals ; but 

 were we as desirous of imitating the example of 

 Frederic of Prussia, in his exertions to promote 

 the agricultural interests of his kingdom, as 

 we are to admire his military fame ; it would 

 be to our advantage. He deserves to be called 

 Great, not because he wasted the fields of oth- 

 er kingdoms, but because he improved his own; 

 tiOt because he improved military tactics, but 

 because he founded a professorship of rural 

 economy at his university of Halle. We have 

 indeed a grand national academy in which our 

 youth are instructed in the art of making widows 

 and orphans ; but we have no academy where 

 they may learn to make their country great 

 and happy by the successful cultivation of the 

 soil. Could it be, that each of our states would 

 endow a professorship of agriculture and the 

 useful arts, iu one of their Colleges, with a 

 farm carried on at the public expense and for 

 the public benefit; it would be perhaps the 

 best way to acquire and disseminate this agri- 

 cultural knowledge. Some of our universities 

 have already a botanic garden ; may we not 

 hope, that, in time, they may enlarge their 

 sphere. 



The next best, and indeed the only other 

 feasible plan, for the improvement of agricul- 

 tural knowledge, is the establishment of ^'Igri- 

 cultural Societies. What is impossible for indi- 

 viduals, may be practicable by associations. 

 The immense benefit they have been to all 

 countries where they have for any length of 

 time been established, is too apparent to be 

 dwelt on. The great improvement of Eng- 

 land ig chiefly owing to her societies. Hardly 

 one of the United States is without one. The 

 most enlightened of our citizens give them 

 their support. Our farmers, generally circum 

 scribed in their means, are not able to make 

 expensive experiments, and are not much giv- 

 en to innovation ; nor is it perfectly fair that one 

 1 man should be at the whole expensej and the 



whole community reap the benefit. It is there- 

 fore necessary, that some means should bo used 

 to stimulate our agriculturalists to make ex- 

 periments ; and to induce them by pecuniary 

 and honorary rewards, to make known the re- 

 sults. For this purpose we have assembled 

 this day, where we can view the most excel- 

 lent of the productions of the soil, decide on 

 their merits and rewards, and learn the manner 

 in which they were produced ; that retuming 

 home, we may practice the same, and make it 

 known to our neighbors. 



But some a-sert that many of the objects of 

 the Society appear to them frivolous and un- 

 profitable. So did to others the introduction of 

 the potatoe, the turnip and the carrot, whicli 

 have made so great a revolution in the agricul- 

 ture of England. — So now perhaps appears, to 

 some, the introduction of the ruta-baga, mangel- 

 wurtzel, woad, madder, and merino sheep. But 

 I answer, that if we succeed in but one object 

 in a hundred, which we undertake, it may be 

 worth to the commonwealth a hundred times all 

 our expense and labor. We most of us remem- 

 ber when the cotton-plant was a stranger in the 

 United States — now it produces one of our 

 greatest articles of export. Rice was thrown 

 on our shores by the wreck of a vessel from 

 Africa, and first planted by the floods; and indi- 

 go, perhaps, was introduced in some way as 

 precarious ; and the time may come when the 

 wool, grain and woad of Maine, may rival the 

 cotton, rice and indigo of Georgia ; and even 

 the cultivation of the tea-plant iu this, or some 

 more southern State, may save our silver front 

 being sent to the ends of the earth, for that 

 article of luxury. 



But our opponents object, that they do not 

 see the effect of our exertions. Do they ex- 

 pect to reap the crop, as soon as the seed is 

 sown? Changes in agriculture are not made in 

 a day. It is but a few years that we have ex- 

 isted ; and in that short time, much agricultural 

 knowledge has been disseminated and turned to 

 actual account. Our breeds of horses and oth- 

 er stock have been improved ; new articles of 

 agriculture have been introduced ; and thresh- 

 ing machines have been invented, which bid 

 fair to rival the cotton-gin in utility ; and we 

 hope soon to present a machine which will so 

 assist the farmer in the preparation of hemp 

 and flax, that we shall have no further need 

 of importations of those articles from Russia. 



True, we have not done as much as we wish, 

 or expect to do ; — but our means are scanty, 

 while our object is great. We have been dis- 

 appointed in the support and countenance we 

 expected from the State government. For, 

 since we have become independent of old Mas- 

 sachusetts, we seem to have thrown ofl the 

 influence of her good example ; and Maine 

 alone, I believe, of all the Northern States, and 

 perhaps of all the States in the Union, gives 

 no support to Agricultural Societies. Com- 

 merce must have its navy, its ambassadors, and 

 its consuls ; manufactures, their protecting du- 

 ties ; and the military art its public school i 

 while agriculture, the support of all others, is 

 left to the encouragement of the State govern- 

 ments ; and the government of our State neg- 

 lects it. Do our legislators think that we know 

 enough already ; -or that we are too stupid to 

 learn ; or that the soil of Maine is not worth 

 cultivating? Or are we too poor to give aoy 



