206 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



DEC. 18, 1839. 



by a want of respect for themselves and respect for 

 llieir vocation. The wholesome habits of society 

 have been so broken up, by the civil and political 

 convulsions of the age, and the inordinate thirst for 

 acquirin;f wealth and fashionable consequence, 

 through mercantile and other specula'ions, that hon- 

 est productive labdr has been thrown entirely into 

 the background, and considered not only ungenteel 

 but menial and servile. Yet I venture to lay down 

 this proposition, that he who provides for the wants 

 and comforts of himself and family, and renders 

 some service to society at large, by his mental and 

 physical industry, performs one of the high duties 

 of life ; and will ultimately be rewarded in the con- 

 scious rectitude of his life, by a greater measure of 

 substantial happiness than he who makes millions 

 by fraud and speculatidn, to be squandered ni ex- 

 travagance or wasted in folly, by his children or 

 grand-children. The revolutions that are constant- 

 ly taking place in families, sufficiently admonish us, 

 that it is not the wealth we leave to our children, 

 but the industrial and moral habits in which we ed- 

 ucate them, that secures to them wordly prosperity, 

 and the treasure of an approving conscience. 



The farcjiers, I have remarked, share in the er- 

 rors of the day. Not content with the gains which 

 are ever the reward of prudent industry, and which 

 might be greatly increased by the culture of the 

 mind — nor content with one of the most indepen- 

 dent conditions in society, hundreds and thousands 

 of them seek other and new employments, and 

 some of truly menial character, to get rid of labor, 

 the greatest blessing to man, and to raise them- 

 selves in the imaginary scale of lashionable society. 

 And if they cannot participate themselves in this 

 imaginary greatness, (and it is seldom any thing 

 more than imaginary,) they are anxious to indict 

 the evil upon their posterity, — to rear their sons to 

 the law, the rail-road to office, — to political power 

 end turmoil ; — to make them merchants, a useful 

 but greatly overstocked business, or to place them 

 in some other genteel employment, which shall ex- 

 empt them from the toils of labor, the salt that best 

 preierves from moral corruption. 



Mistaken men! What class in society have 

 within their reach so many of the elements of hu- 

 man enjoyments — so many facilities .''or dispensing 

 benefits to other.s — one of the first duties and rich- 

 est pleasures of life — as the independent tillers of 

 the soil? " The farmer," says Franklin, "has no 

 need of popular favor ; the success of his crops de- 

 pends only on the blessing of God upon his honest 

 industry." If discreetly conducted on the improv- 

 ed principles if husbandry, agriculture offers the 

 certain means of acquiring wealth, and as rapidly 

 as is consistent with the pure enjoyments of life, 

 or with the good order and prosperous condition of 

 society. Agriculture is the golden mean, secure 

 alike from the temptations of mushroom opulence, 

 and the craven sycophancy and dependence of pov- 

 erty. " Give me neither poverty nor riches," was 

 the prayer of the wise man of Scripture, " lest," he 

 added, " lest I be full and deny tliee, and say, who 

 is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal, and take 

 the name of my God in vain." 



When we consider that agriculture is the great 

 business of the nation — of mankind, — that its suc- 

 cessful prosecution depends upon a knowledge in 

 the cultivators of the soil, of the principles of natu- 

 ral scien.ce — and that our agriculture stands in spe- 

 cial need of this auxiliary aid, — we cannot with- 

 hold our surprise and regret, that we have not lonf 

 since established professional schoolB, in which our 



youth, or such of them as are designed to manage 

 this branch of national labor, might be taught si- 

 multaneously, the principles and practice of their 

 future business of life, and on which, more than any 

 other branch of business, the fortunes of our coun- 

 try, moral, political, and national, essentially de- 

 pend. We require an initiatory study of years in 

 the principles of law and medicine, before we per- 

 mit the pupil to practice in tiiese professions. We 

 require a like preliminary study in our military and 

 naval schools, in the science of war and navigation, 

 ere the student is deemed qualified to command. — 

 And yet, in agriculture, by which, under the bless- 

 ing of Providence, we virtually " live, move, and 

 have our being," and which truly embraces a wider 

 range of useful science than either law, medicine, 

 war, or navigation, we have no schools, we give no 

 instruction, we bestow no governmental patronage. 

 Scientific knowledge is deemed indispensable in 

 many minor employments of life; but in this great 

 business, in which its influence would be most po- 

 tent and useful, we consider it, judging from our 

 practice, of less consequence than the fictions of 

 the novelist. We regard mind as the efficient pow- 

 er in most other pursuits ; while we forget, that in 

 agriculture, it is the Archimedean lever, which, 

 though it does not move, tends to Jill a world with 

 plenty, with moral health, and human happiness. — 

 Can it excite surprise, that under these circumstan- 

 ces of gross neglect, agriculture should have be- 

 come among us, in popular estimation, a clownish 

 and ignoble employment? 



In the absence of agricultural professional schools 

 could we not do much to enlighten and raise the 

 character of American husbandry, by making its 

 principles a branch of study incur district schools? 

 This knowledge would seldom come amiss, and it 

 would often prove a ready help under misfortune, 

 to those who had failed in other business. What 

 man is there, who may not expect, at some time of 

 life, to profit directly by a knowledge of these prin- 

 ciples ? Who does not hope to become the owner, 

 or cultivator, of a garden or a farm? And what 

 man, enjoying the blessing of health, would be at 

 a loss for the means of an honest livelihood, whose 

 mind had been early imbued with the philosophy 

 of rural culture — and who would rather work than 



An early acquaintance with natural science, is 

 calculated to beget a taste for rural life and rural la- 

 bor, as a source of pleastire, profit, and honor. It will 

 stimulate to the improvement of the mind, to elevate 

 and purify it — to self-respect, to moral deportment: 

 and it will tend to deterfrom the formation ofbad hab- 

 its, which steal upon the ignorant and the idle una- 

 wares, and which consign thousands of young men 

 to poverty and disgrace, if not to premature graves. 

 A. knowledge of these principles, to a very useful 

 extent, can be acquired with as much facility in 

 the school or upon the farm, as other branches of 

 learning. Why, then, shall they not be taught ? 

 Why shall we withhold from our agricultural popu- 

 lation that knowledge which is so indispensable to 

 their profit, to their independence, and to their cor- 

 rect bearing as freemen ? Why, while we boast of 

 our superior privileges, keep in comparative igno- 

 rance of their business, that class of our citizens 

 who are truly the conservators of our freedom? I 

 know of but one objection — the want of teachers. 

 A few years ago, civil engineers were not to be 

 found among us. The demand for them created a 

 supply. We have demonstrated that we have the 

 materials for civil engineers, and that we can work 



them up. We have materials for teachers of agri- 

 cultural science, which we can also work up. De- 

 mand will always ensure a supply. 



The enumeration of the foregoing obstacles to 

 agricultural iinprovement, sufficiently indicates tha 



means which will be efficient in removing them 



The means consist, so far as f now propose to no- 

 tice them — 



1. In giving a yjroyessionai education to the young 

 farmer, which sliall embrace the principles and the 

 practice of the business which he is designed to 

 follow in life — and 



2. In diffusing more extensively, among those 

 who have completed their juvenile studies, and are 

 better fitted to profit by the lessons of wisdom and 

 experience, a knowledge of the same principles and 

 of the best modes of practice which these princi- 

 ples inculcate, and which experience has proved to 

 be sound. 



We have professional schools in almost every 

 business of life, except in the cultivation of the soil, 

 one of the most import'int and essential of them all, 

 and one embracing a larger scope of useful study 

 in natural science and in usefulness to the temporal 

 wants of the human family, than any other. The 

 policy of monarchs, and of privileged orders, has 

 been to repress intelligence in the agricultural mass 

 in order to keep them in a subordinate station. But 

 neither the policy nor the practice should be coun- 

 tenanced by us. Our agriculturists are our privi- 

 leged class, if we have such. They are our sove- 

 reigns, because, from their superior numbers, they 

 must ever control our political destinies, for good 

 or for evil. And the more intelligent and inde- 

 pendent we can render them, the more safe we 

 make our country from the convulsions of internal 

 feuds, and the danger of foreign war. 



I put the question to fathers — Would you es- 

 teem that son less, or think him less likely to fulfil 

 the great duties of life, who had been educated in 

 a professional school of agriculture, with all the 

 high qualifications which it would confer for public 

 and domestic usefulness, than him who had been 

 educated for the counter, the bar, or otherhigh pro- 

 fessional callings ? On which could you best rely 

 for support and comfort in the decline of life ? Nay, 

 I will venture to carry the appeal farther — to the 

 discriminating judgment of the unmarried lady — 

 Would you reject, as a partner for life, the student 

 of such a college, coming forth with a sound mind, 

 deeply imbued with useful knowledge, and a hale 

 constitution, invigorated by manly exercise, whose 

 circa and affections were likely to be concentrated 

 upon home and country, and whose precepts and 

 examples would tend to diffuse industry, prosperity, 

 and rural happiness around him? The father's re- 

 sponse would be, I think, an unhesitating no, to the 

 first question ; and the lady's, after due delibera- 

 tion, I verily suspect, would be a half articulate 

 amen. I pretend not to the spirit of prophecy, yet 

 I venture to predict, that many who now hear me, 

 will live to see professional schools of agriculture 

 established in our land, to see their utility extolled, 

 and to be induced to consider them the best nurse- 

 ries for republican virtues, and the surest guaran- 

 tee for the perpetuity of our liberties. They should 

 be established — they will be established — and the 

 sooner they are established, the better for our coun- 

 try. 



To those who have passed to manhood, and who 

 have made up their minds, from necessity or from 

 choice, to till the ground, the means of improve- 

 ment — of studying the principles of their business 



