336 [Assembly 



heretofore confined within the walls of Colleges fi"ora the most 

 ancient days, now find profit and fame in carrying their Science 

 into the fields — and men of wealth open their purses and give 

 out tlieir sovereigns or their dollars, to reward the farmer for 

 his good deeds, and yet more, associate with him. No longer 

 treating him like a boor, but as a citizen of distinguished im- 

 portance. 



It is true that the opinions of farmers having been derived from 

 their ancestors, generation after generation, and they but little 

 used to free intercourse with men — rarely traveling beyond their 

 own country — are exceedingly deep rooted, like their own oaks, 

 they resist all changes. 



While all other works of man have changed, while the low 

 narrow cottage has changed to a beautiful farm dwelling, while 

 the barn has enlarged to t!ie size of a church, A'here the farming 

 is good, still tlie mass live on and wear away the soil and life, in 

 the midst of ignorant, careless, slovenly existence. 



Reform! reform! — the outcry of modern nations for change of 

 government or religion — had better be for universal emancipation 

 of the glorious land given to us by the Lord our God, from the 

 piteous abuses to which human ignorance and vice have hereto- 

 fore doomed so mucli of it. 



About forty years ago, among other -wise men, John Taylor of 

 Virginia, a distinguished member of the United States Senate, 

 and Governor of the State, made use of the following language 

 in his '■^ Aratoi ^ the jjloughman," a duodecimo book of his. 



The Senator was a practical farmer on a large scale, and restor- 

 ed fertility to a large body of land worn out by bad management. 

 He begins his little book by quoting an Englishman. 



Mr. Strickland, an Englishman, reputed to be sensible and 

 honest, published at London, in the year 1801, a pamphlet upon 

 the agriculture of the United States, being the result of his own 

 observations during a considerable period spent in traveling 

 through the country, for the special purpose of investigating it. 



