354 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



MAT 15. IHJO. 



independence waged in defence of commercial in- 

 terests and of sailor's ri(;l]t:J, of wliicli she was not 

 personally the victim, Kentucky "did not stand 

 still ;■' her valor and her patriotism havini;: signaliz- 

 ed every field of blood from the shores of the lakes 

 to the banks of the Mississippi. "Kentucky did 

 not stand still" in the cause of human freedom, 

 whether she supposed that standard whs unfurled 

 among the children of the sun in the south, or on 

 the class. c shores of Greece ; and now in ihis age 

 of improvement, she stands ready to tal e her place 

 among her enlightened sisters of the confederacy, 

 by entering upon a noble career in reiVrence to the 

 high interest which the Governor elucidates with 

 so much ability. But may we not hope that if the 

 day has not already dawned, it is rapidly approach- 

 ing, when she "will not stand still" in efforts to 

 advance the great cause of agriculture ? All the 

 motives which may be supposed to have influence 

 in causing her march to be "onward" in relation to 

 the cause of internal improvements, apply with 

 equal force to the encouragement of h^r agricultu- 

 ral interests ; for if the appropriation of seven mil- 

 lions of dollars to the construction of paved rail 

 roads and slack water navigation, be justly predi- 

 cated'«n the assumption that it vvill increase the 

 wealth and conseriuently the revenue of the State, 

 there can be no conceivable reason why an improv- 

 ed condition of agriculture, superinduced by the 

 application of science to art, shall not demand of 

 the logislaliv e councils some display of the public 

 bounty. The selfish as well as the more elevated 

 motives which ought to prompt the fanner to ado[)t 

 such methods and to seek such information as sci- 

 ence imparts to the cultivation of the soil, whereby 

 nn increased profit may attend his labors, address 

 themselves with undiminished force to the legisla- 

 tive councils ; for if, as in the case of Scotland and 

 the New England States, the endowment of agri- 

 cultural societies and professors, and the authoriz- 

 ing of agricultural surveys, should lead to afout-fold 

 increase in the productions of the soil, the boufiXy 

 granted by the State would be more than repaid in 

 an increased re^'enue. I!ut this subject is too 

 transcendent in its beneficial influences, to be esti- 

 mated merely by the dollars it would yield to the 

 treasury of the State or of individuals. An im- 

 proved condition of agriculture carries witli it a 

 train of blessings which money cannot purchase, in 

 an increased intelligence and a higher toned rtiorai- 

 ity in the mass of the people. In proi)ortion as 

 science shall shed its rays upon the path of the 

 farmer; and in proportion as "mind, the grand 

 source of intellectual pleasure, the master poTver 

 which abridges la'Jor," shall be exerted on the pur- 

 suits of agriculture, the character and dignity of the 

 profession will be advanced, the sources of national 

 stren'j:th will be developed, and the indications of 

 moral improvement will be visible in the public 

 countenance. If it be contended that the plans 

 which are in progress for the improvement of the 

 soil partake of the character of experiments, and 

 that therefore the legislature should pause in grant- 

 ing aid, we may derive an instructive lesson from 

 the history of the growth of cotton and of sugar. 

 Fifty years ago it was not known that cotton would 

 grow in the United States, but the eKperiment re- 

 ceived the fostering care of government, and from 

 only liOO,000 pounds being exported in 1791, more 

 than four liutulred millions are exported at the 

 present time. Then, its production was limited to 

 one State — now, it is the staple of seven, regulat- 

 ing by its price nearly every other production, and 



supplying, in addition to otir own great and increas- 

 ing dv'uiand, two-thirds of all that is used in foreign 

 climes. Indeed, the culture and manufacture of 

 cotton have now become the support of more than 

 ten millions of the human race in Europe and A- 

 merica, and of more than fifty millions in Asia and 

 Africa. A more recent experiment in Maine and 

 .Massachusetts, has served to exhibit the value of 

 legislative encouragement in aid of agricultural ef- 

 fort. Maine g.^anted a bounty to the growth of 

 wheat of .$1.50,000, and a large bounty was wiven 

 by Massachusetts upon the same article, at a peri- 

 od when her consumption ot imported flour annunt- 

 tcd to $7,000,000. It is now ascertained that both 

 these States will be able to export flour — the poli- 

 cy having originated from the supposed fact that 

 their irdiospitable soil and climate would not pro- 

 duce grain ; but intelligent, scientific agriculturists, 

 men whom the ignorant stigmatize as ''hook far- 

 mers," acted upon a diflferent op nion, and its truth 

 has been demonstrated in the fact that wheat has 

 been' successfully grown in Maine, tijrther north 

 than Massachusetts, thus presenting another in- 

 stance of the soundness of the maxim that experi- 

 ment is the mother of improvement and improve- 

 ment is the true source of wealth. 



I cannot exaggerate to myself the importance 

 which a free people should attach to agricultural 

 periodicals and to agricultural education. All the 

 valuable improvements in husbandry have been the 

 result of scientific effort and of the wide spread 

 dissemination of the opinion which the writings of 

 the most eminent Romans inculcated, that the cul- 

 tivation of the soil and of elegant letters were not 

 incompatible pursuits. By the application of the 

 physical sciences, the wonderful creation of modern 

 times, agriculture has become not merely a me- 

 chanical employment, but a science founded upon 

 the process of induction from ascertained facts, 

 and if a medical institute be entitled to legislative 

 regard, the claims to a bounty for an agricultural 

 education are equally imposing, science being alike 

 beneficial to both — the one to presecveand prolong 

 life, the other to nourish it and multiply its com- 

 forts. The public mind should be excited to the 

 tone which prevailed in ancient Sparta, of regard- 

 iilg the children of the republic as the property of 

 the republic, as the materials of our temple of free- 

 dom, erected upon the principle of teaching the 

 hands to irork and the mind to think. In reference 

 to this vital interest, tire late De Witt Clinton in- 

 dulged in a prophecy in his Inst .message to the 

 legislature of New York, which the experience of 

 the schools in Prussia and other Gei-man states has 

 since fulfilled. He said, that " by a proper system 

 of education and correct modes of teaching, our 

 children might beconve familiar with the physical 

 sciences, botany, mineralogy, the various classes of 

 animals, chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, 

 the fundamental principles of agriculture and polit- 

 ical economy, and much of history and biography." 



'I he endowment of agricu.Tiiral schools and the 

 circulation of agricultural journals is rendered the 

 more necessary from a consideration of the pecu- 

 liar habits and modes of thinking prevalent among 

 our farmers. As a class of people they have little 

 intercourse with each other : they do not preserve 

 the result of their experinieuls in books, like me- 

 chanics and manufacturers ; they have rarely held 

 conventions to concentrate into a focus the lights of 

 the day, to be thence imparted through the press to 

 the remotest ends of the republic; they entertain 

 an unworthy prejudice towards the attainments of 



book farming; they profess to be too old to seek 

 or to receive information upon Uie great business 

 of their lives, and therefore we must look to the 

 means which shall enlighten the rising generation 

 for any hope of future high attainments in agricul- 

 tural knowledge. In designating the source of 

 these nnpropitious notions among our farmers, we 

 shall perceive at once the pernicious influence of 

 their reluctance to read agricultural journals; and 

 as if they had designed to set at nought all the 

 maxims of common prudence, we find them encour- 

 aging and sustaining nearly one thousand political 

 papers, whilst not more than twenty papers devoted 

 to agriculture are supported by a class whose num- 

 bers and importance are in the inverse latio of their 

 distinctive journals. The farmer is content to 

 meet his neighbor at the court yard, at the muster, 

 at the election, and occasionally at the fireside in 

 the winter, to converse about his farm and its prod- 

 ucts, and sometimes about the reason of different 

 modes of cultivation, but he will reject a newspa- 

 per devoted to agriculture, which conveys to hira 

 the concentrated experience of all the intelligent 

 and practical farmers who have lived in every coun- 

 try and in every age, and cannot be persuaded to 

 realize that in perusing the pages of the N. Y. Cul- 

 tivator, the Genesee Farmer, the Parmer's Cabinet, 

 of Penn., the Farmer's Register of Va., the Buck- 

 eye Ploughboy, of O., and the Maine Farmer, the 

 N. E. Farmer, the Farmer and Gardener of Ealt, 

 and the Franklin Farmer, he is conversing at his 

 leisure with those in every age who have made 

 farming both a science and a business. In view 

 then of these facts, who can estimate the vast a- 

 mount of every species of improvement in cultiva- 

 tion, the results of individual exerti(m for ages, that 

 has been lost for the want of convenient methods 

 of communication ; or who would now attempt to 

 calculate the addition that has been made to our 

 stock of agricultural knowledge and wealth by the 

 publications which are now diffusing their light all 

 over the country ? 



As an evidence of the deep necessity for the a- 

 doption of some stimulating measures in relation to 

 our agricultural condition, we have only to advert 

 to the crop which is annually produced in Kentucky, 

 not exceeding upon an average 35 bushels of corn, 

 12 of small grain, 500 lbs. of hemp and one ton of 

 hay to the acre ; and whilst the Atlantic States 

 present the humiliating spectacle of importing hay 

 and oats from Scotland, eggs from France, potatoes 

 from Ireland and Germany, and bread stuffs from 

 every country in Europe, Kentucky imports clover 

 and timothy seed from Wheeling and Ohio, and 

 seed Irish potatoes from Pittsburg. How few a- 

 inong us understand the amount which an acre^cr- 

 feciltj cultivated, will prod ice. How few understand 

 the secret of producing the greatest result without 

 deterioration to the soil ; the object being not mere- 

 ly to obtain the grt.alcst crops for a few years, but 

 the largest annual returns compatible with the in- 

 creasing value of the soil. And how few now re- 

 alize the startling fact that a farmer from Flanders 

 would support his family by the cultivation of the 

 fence corners now in weeds upon any of the large 

 farms in Kentucky. 



These reflections, gentlemen, are submitted to 

 you in the hope that we may all begin to learn 

 something of our duty, and I shall be more than 

 compensated if they shall have the auspicious effect 

 of leading my brother farmers to think, and the leg- 

 islative authority to ad in relation to the great in- 

 terest upon the prosperity of which every other de- 



