44 



THE NEW GENESEE FARMER, 



Vol. 



H. COIiltlAlV'S ADWKESS, 



BEFORE THK AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY OF NEW HAVEN CO., COSN. 



We often feel a deaire lo lay before our readers 

 more of the able addresses and other excellent articles 

 which we find in our exchange papers; but were we to 

 do 80, we should be compelled to omit many of the fa- 

 vors of our esteemed correspondents; and we are a- 

 ware that most of our readers generally prefer that 

 which is written for their particular benefit. We 

 should do them injustice, however, were we to con- 

 fine our columns to or'gnal articles; for many valua- 

 ble discoveries and improvements are made indifferent 

 places, and published in other journals, and it always 

 stimulates and pleases the mind to learn that other 

 people, in various places, are actuated by the same 

 spirit, and engaged in the same enterprise as ourselves. 

 No man at the present day, in the United States, 

 occupies a higher rank, as an advocate of improve- 

 ment, or a delineator of the pleasures and advantages 

 of a rural life, than Henrt Colman; and no man is 

 doing more to elevate the noble profession of Agricul- 

 ture to its proper standard, than him. We are led to 

 these remarks by reading the address as above named. 

 We cannot afford room for the whole of it; but we 

 are sure our readers will derive both pleasure and pro- 

 fit from the following portions — Eds. New Gen. Far. 



THE FARMER NEED NOT BE JEALOUS OP HIS NEIGHBOR. 



No occasion of the gathering of the people is less 

 liable to objection, or more congenial to benevolent and 

 pious sentiments, than that which has brought us to- 

 gether. 



Here, a spirit of good will reigns over the whole. 

 No discordant or hostile feeling can find place. No 

 strife and no emulation can find place, but an emula- 

 lion for excellence, which alike benefits all, and in im- 

 provements, which diffuse themselves over the com- 

 munity, and the sole aim of which is the common wel- 

 fare. To well disposed minds, this is a religious oc- 

 casion of the highest character. None is more suited 

 to lift up the soul in adoring confidence and gratitude 

 to the great Author of nature.^ He it is, who " cau- 

 ses grass to grow for cattle, and herbs for the service 

 of man." He clothes the flowers of the field with a 

 splendor, before which the gorgeousness of oriental 

 luxury is dimmed. His benevolent agency operntes 

 every where in the teeming earth, the swelling bud, 

 the golden and crimsoned frnit; in the vapor, the' dew] 

 the air, the heat, the light, in all their mysterious in- 

 fluences. He is the source of all felicity, health and 

 beauty. 



THE ART OF LIFE IS THE ABILITY TO OBTAIN FOOD. 



Agriculture is the great art of life. In an economi- 

 cal view it constitutes the subsistence of man. Eat- 

 ir.g and drinking are deemed vulgar employment; yet 

 who, even among the exquisite of the transcendant 

 school, is not compelled to conform to the fashion.— 

 The body is often spoken of with disdain, as thouoh 

 there were something degrading in its material efe- 

 ments. In such cases, a reflection is cast upon the 

 divine skill and beneficence in one ol iheirmost won- 

 derful exhibitions. But is there not an electric chain 

 of sympathy between the body and mind ? What is 

 to become of our philosophy without bread and meat i 

 How 18 genius to speed her flight, or the fires of the 

 imagination to be kept bright, unless this same body 

 the dwelling place of the etherial guest, be maintain- 

 ed m its health, elasticity, and vigor. It is calculated 

 that it the harvest of a single year should fail, the 

 whole of the human race must perish. In our lati- 

 tude the earth yields nothing unasked and unwooed 

 Allof food and of clothing, all that sustains and pro- 

 tects the body, is the product of agricultural labor in 

 some of its various forms. 



THE PRODUCT OF LABOR THE ONLY REAL WEALTH. 



Agriculture is the foundation of wealth. The sea 

 renders her tribute; but theenrth presents to skill and 

 industry richer and infinitely varied contributions — 

 Mjney is not wealth. It ia only the representative of 

 wealth. Money is coveted because it cm command 

 labor; but of vvhat use would it be, if labor would not 

 be commanded ? What would it avail to possess all 



the barks of commere in their liquid flight, threading 

 every channel and whitening every port, but the pro 

 ducts of agriculture ? What constitutes the wealth 

 of the country but her cotton, hemp, sugar, rice, to- 

 bacco, wool, wheat, beef, and pork I Agriculture on- 

 ly can be considered as the creator of wealth. The 

 merchant, the manulactnrer, the sailor, the various 

 artisans and tradesmen perform their part in making 

 the products of agriculture more valuable; in trans- 

 porting them so that the advantages of climate are e- 

 qualized, and in putting them in a condition for use; 

 lut agriculture alone produces. Like the leader of Is- 

 rael, she fctrikes the rock, the waters flow, and a fam- 

 ishing people are satisfied. She supplies, she feeds 

 she quickens all. Agriculture is the commanding in- 

 terest of the country, with which no single interest 

 nor indeed all other interests of o secular nature com' 

 bined, can be brought into competition. 



AC RICULTURE A SCIENCE DISCLOSING A MINE OF WONDERS. 



Agriculture deserves the attention of liberal minds 

 as a science. Like many other sciences, it is in its 

 infancy. We have broken only the outer crust; but 

 It comprehends the mysteries of philosophy. It in- 

 volves the whole science of life in the veoetable and 

 animal kingdoms; the miracles of actual production, 

 and the power which man may exercise in modifying 

 vegetable and animal existence. The rearing ofa tree 

 the maturing ofa vegetable, the production ofa flow- 

 er, the forming ofa race of animals, with shapes, and 

 dispositions, and qualities, modified to a great extent 

 according to your wishes, are in themselves miracles 

 of a power delegated to man, which an intelligent 

 mind recognizes as divine. 



Whoever, looking at a dried seed and kernel, con- 

 siders what It may become, when the plant shall yield 

 bread or the tree spread out Us branches loaded with 

 Iruit, whoever considers the nature of the life which 

 hee buried in this shell, and reflects upon the combi- 

 ned influences of earth, and air, and moisture, and 

 heat, and cultivation, in their inscrutable operations 

 all requisite in precise times, quantities and modes of 

 application, to bring it to perfection, will perceive sub- 

 jects of inquiry suited to occupy the most gifted intel- 

 lect. As he approaches this mine of wonders, his bo- 

 som will iinnt with an irrepressible curiosity to gain 

 admission into the hiding place of the Divinity, and 

 to quench his burning thirst at the original fountains 

 of power, hie, intelligence, and light. Geolocry, che- 

 mistry, botany, all the branches of natural philosophy, 

 natural history, in its diversified departments, animal 

 and vegetable physiology, comparotive anatomy, me- 

 chanics, meteorology, all are involved in an improved 

 agriculture. The nature of soils has been long a sub- 

 ject of philosophical investigation; and that, with the 

 application and operation of manures, seems now to be 

 holding in reserve for chemistry its most brilliant tri- 

 umphs. Do [ offend a fastidious ear by a relerence to 

 a topic so humble ? In looking at the master-piece of 

 human genius in sculpture, the Venus de Medicis, the 

 vulgar mind brings away from the contemplation no 

 higher sentiment than that it is naked. The pure and 

 disciplined mind hardly conscious of this fact, and 

 leeling the responsive movements of the divinity with- 

 in Itself, admires with adoring wonder the triumphs of 

 genius in this sensible embodiment of the highest 

 beauties of form in the works of the Creator. So it ia 

 with other objects in nature, so much depends upon 

 the eye with which we look at them. The vulgar 

 mind, in the heap of manure by the road side, thinks 

 only of us offensiveness and corruption. The well 

 disciplined mmd regards it as an element in one of the 

 most affecting miracles of the Divine power, and a- 

 dores that beneficent agency, which, in its mysterious 

 operations, converts this refuse into fruits and flowers. 

 To consider agriculture as mere servile drudgery 

 IS no more doing it justice, than to consider chemistry 

 as only the art of mingling acids and alkalies, and 

 handling pots and retorts, and crucibles, and filters — 

 Let the man of cultivated and philosophical mind ap- 

 proach the subject of agriculture, and he finds " ser- 

 mons m stones and books in the running streams."— 

 Let him engage in its humblest labors, and the same 

 iurrow, which is to bear upon its inverted surface the 

 golden grain to nourish his animal life, will produce 

 bread to eat, which common minds know not of, to 

 nourish his intellectual and moral being. There is 

 not one of the natural, or what are called the practical 

 eciences, which may not have a bearing upon agricul- 

 ture. It is with agriculture as in other cases" that 

 mere theory will make no man a farmer. The com- 

 mon processes and the successful execution of the 

 mmon labors of husbandry can be learned only by 



stand at the helm. But to think that because we hi 

 done these things, that therefore we understand ai 

 culture, is as wise as for the man, who should wi 

 up to his ankle in some puddle left by the recedi 

 tide upon the sea shore, to pretend that the ocean 

 not very deep. 



The nature and use of soils, the artificial combi , 

 tion of them in different cases so as to effect the lara j 

 growth and productiveness, the nature of mainij ij 

 their uses, application, operations, and infinite vot 

 ties, their mechanical influences, and their chemj 

 effects, the varieties of grasses, grains, plants, i 

 fruits, which arc or may be cultivated, the habitj 

 yegetoblea and the propogation of new varietiesl 

 influences of light, and heat, and oir, and dew, J 

 rain, and electricity upon vegetation, and how, 

 they may be controlled by human ingenuity or sK 

 the history and habits of the domestic animals and i 

 modes of rearing them to the highest degree of per{ 

 tion, the construction of farm implements so at 

 combine the greatest effects with the least expense 

 power, the history of agriculture, its condition and i 

 provements at home and abroad, rural labor, rural) 

 chiteclure, agricultural education, the intellectnalj 

 moral improvement of the agricultural classes, thet . ( 

 nection of agriculture with national wealth, and y * „ 

 its great sisters, manufactures and commerce, i 

 above all, its bearings upon domestic and public ha| 

 ness, upon domestic morals — these topics, among ( 

 ers which might be named, show that agriculture 

 not destitute, to a philosophic mind, of matters of pi 

 found scientific inquiry. 



the riches of Potosi, irthereby we eo d irZ' "'' <=<""f"°" l«h"rs of husbandry can be learned only by 

 the products of agri'cuhurr? mat a e the maZ c C T ^^' ^^° '^T^'^ ^'"^^' " P'°"g'' »'^"' >""«' 



" TRUE politeness" IN THE COUNTRY AND THE C 



Agriculture, as a pursuit, commends itself to 

 sons of refined taste and sentiment. I know hi 

 shall startle the ear of city fastidiousess by such a: 

 sertion; but I rely upon your candor that I shall 

 offend by the expression of my honest convietionw 

 There is much in the country that is vulgar, rude d 

 offensive. There is no occasion for this. This isr 

 the fault of the country. But is there more of this 

 the country than is to be found in cities'? The 1 

 things depend much upon ourselves. The arti 

 forms of social intercourse do not prevail in the cu 

 try as in the town— at least they are not the sal 

 but It is often delightful to lay aside, at leasti 

 a while, the buckrum and the starch. I have ' 

 through life familiar with all classes of people. 1 1 

 been for many years a citizen among cities, and a 

 mer among the farmers. I have been a frequent moit 

 itor in city palaces, and many a time an indwelle a 

 the humblest mansions in the secluded parts of^^ 

 country; and I must say, without derogating from 

 refinements of the most improved societies in thi 

 ties, that the comparison in respect to courtesy anii 

 vility would not turn out to the disadvantoge of 

 country. True politeness is not matter of mere fi 

 or manner, but of sentiment and heart. There 

 rude and vulgar people every where, but will n 

 sober judgment pronounce it as great a rudeness ti 

 sent knowingly away from the door of one who < 

 herself a friend by a servant with a lie put in his moi 

 as to be received by the kind woman who vvelcoi 

 us heartily at her wash-tub, or her spinning-wlL 

 and sweeps a place for us without apology to sit dd 

 at her kitchen fire. You will pardon the homelii etli 

 of my illustrations. Yon may thread your beau( etm 

 valley from the ocean to the mountains; you mayj 

 I have done, follow the silver stream, whose hont 

 name is borne by your Commonwealth, from the pi 

 where it deposits its contributions in the mighty tj 

 sury of the sea, to its gushing sources under the si 

 clad summits of the north, and traverse every g 

 whose borders are laved by its gentle waters, and gg- 1 

 manners on your part will generally be met wiiE | 

 corresponding civility. Excepting among the viciot 

 and depraved, you will find no rudeness unless yo 

 so unfortunate as to provoke it by your own arrogB 

 It is lolly to carry city manners and customs 

 the country. This destroys the simplicity which 

 stitutes the charm of rural life. If you have no u 

 for rural pleasures, no interest in rural concernj! 

 disposition for rural labors; if you are afraid ofsoi' 

 your hands or browning your cheeks; if you 

 make no friends with the flocks that whiten the fi( 

 nor the birds that make the hills and forests vocal 

 melody; if you are unwilling that the eariiest raw 

 the dawn should disturb your repose, and your b 

 kindles with no enthusiasm in golden sunset n 

 flee the country as you would the Siberian desert.'^ 

 would be to you only a land of discomfort and ai 

 tude. 



AGRICULTDRE THE DELIGHT OF GIFTED INTELLEq 



I l^nt it is otherwise with many minds. AgriciiH 



