1860. 



?sEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



383 



tance from its funds. Some have existed for 

 about forty years ; others are comparatively of 

 recent date. Each society receives about six hun- 

 dred dollars from the State treasury. In some 

 counties, there are two, three, and even four so- 

 cieties, each receiving the State bounty of six 

 hundred dollars ; so that there is a great dispar- 

 ity in the amount received from the State by the 

 different counties — one receiving twenty-four hun- 

 dred dollars, while others of equal territory, pop- 

 ulation and business, receive only six hundred 

 dollars. This inequality — this giving four times 

 as much money to one county as to another of 

 equal rank and influence, is the cause of much 

 jealousy and dissatisfaction. 



But the chief causes of dissatisfaction with 

 county societies, and those ■which greatly impair 

 their usefulness and influence, remain to be men- 

 tioned. It is not the unequal amount of money 

 drawn out of the State treasury by the different 

 counties, so unjust in itself, but it is the way and 

 manner in which the money is appropriated, and 

 the objects to which it is frequently appropriated, 

 that give the most dissatisfaction. 



The State bounty was undoubtedly given with 

 a view to encourage and promote good farming — 

 economical and profitable farming — such as may 

 be denominated skilful and scientific ; whereas, it 

 has frequently been applied by some of the coun- 

 ty societies to purposes and objects wholly in- 

 consistent with the interests of good farming, and 

 of the several towns in the county. It is sufiicient 

 for my present purpose to mention only the man- 

 ner in which a jiortion of the State bounty is ex- 

 pended in building up the county towns to the 

 exclusion of the other towns which take no inter- 

 est in the society ; in erecting buildings and other 

 fixtures therein for public exhibitions ; in pur- 

 chasing and grading lands to be kept and used 

 for a public race-course, and thus encouraging 

 horse-racing, with all its attendant evils, by the 

 sanction and authority of the State ; in bestov/- 

 ing premiums, not only upon the fleetest horses, 

 but upon the best specimens of female equestrian- 

 ism, and upon all monsters and prodigies, both in 

 the animal and vegetable kingdom. 



If we now turn our attention, for a moment, to 

 the toivn societies, with their cattle-shows and 

 exhibitions, in which the whole population, men, 

 women and children, take the deepest interest, 

 and for the success of Avhich they exert them- 

 selves to the utmost, we shall find a very differ- 

 ent state of things. They have no funds to lav- 

 ish on objects of questionable or doubtful impor- 

 tance ; no race-course, no fast horses, no fast 

 women to ride them, no monster premiums for 

 any of the monstrosities of nature or art ; no, 

 they have none of these things ; but, in their 

 stead, they have honorary premiums, or certificates 

 of premiums for all the objects which legitimately 

 come under the heads of good and profitable farm- 

 ing, and of domestic industry and economy. 



The number of tow'u societies in the State is 

 unknown to me. They are increasing in number 

 every year, and all very flourishing. The oldest, 

 and perhaps the most successful, in the State, is 

 in the town of Hardwick in the county of Wor- 

 cester, which has existed for about thirty years. 

 There are no less than three town societies in the 

 county of Franklin, which compare very favora- 

 bly with the county society. 



The question, then, recurs, which will best pro- 

 mote good farming, county or tovni societies? 

 They both possess the means of doing much to 

 promote good farming. The county societies have, 

 in their hands, the State bounty w'ith which to 

 reward those who excel in good farming ; but 

 they have no means of compelling those who hap- 

 pen to live ten, fifteen or twenty miles off to be 

 present at the fair with their stock and produce 

 to witness the exhibition and to listen to the ad- 

 dress. Therefore, as we can not bring the people 

 to the cattle-show, we must carry the cattle-show 

 to the people, for their instruction and enligliten- 

 ment. In this respect, town societies have great 

 advantages over county societies. 



Warwick, Mass., 1860. John Goldsbury. 



AGBICUIiTUKAL SCHOOLS. 



The youths at West Point are obliged to per- 

 form the duties of common soldiers, and in so 

 far as they understand these, they make the bet- 

 ter commanders. A body of these young men 

 would win more battles than three times the num- 

 ber led by ignorance, and commanded by the same 

 quality, however strong or muscular it may be ; 

 and the youths of ovn* naval school will be far 

 more efficient seamen and commanders by being 

 taught the practical details and the philosophy of 

 their profession at the same time. The same in- 

 fluence will be exerted on agriculture, when those 

 who do its work are made intelligent by educa- 

 tion, or made to feel that they are engaged in an 

 occupation as full of honor as any other. 



These schools are not to be established for a 

 class. All who enter them must labor. Agricul- 

 ture is to be learned in its most minute details, 

 and all idea of degradation in the plow, the spade, 

 the manure heap, is to be utterly excluded. Our 

 country wants a complete displacement of that 

 kind of false pride that leads the young men of 

 the country to imagine there is something too hu- 

 miliating, too plain and simple, in the operations 

 of a farm for their vaulting, high-ste]3ping ambi- 

 tion — that to rush into cities, to crowd into trades 

 and professions, to live by one's wits, to demean 

 one's self by servility, to learn arts, tricks, cun- 

 ning, till dishonor too often follows the access of 

 their fortunes, has in it something more gratify- 

 ing to their self-conceit, more plausible, more 

 flattering to a vanity that has not been made mod- 

 est by disappointment, or broken by necessit3^ 



Farmers, as a class, know little of any labor 

 but that of the body. Their minds are dulled by 

 toil, and routine and custom take the place of 

 thought. As a general rule this may bo true ; 

 but it must be borne in mind that necessity haunts 

 them through their lives ; that pfiinful, exacting 

 and severe labor are the attributes, and elements 

 their avocation ; and beginning, as most of them 

 do, with debt and a small capital, it is an evidence 

 of the most earnest industry, of the hardiest exer- 

 tion, to meet, to endure and to conquer the weight 

 of incumbrances, the rough handling of mental 

 solicitude, and that array of troubles that beset 

 them in the vicissitudes of the seasons, which He 

 down with them at night, rise with them with 

 each morning's sun, and move with them step by 

 step throughout their lives. To such men, or the 

 sons of such men, it would be foppery to offer an 



