iv PR E FACE. 



and therefore attractive and popular, is a certain home market; and wherever such exists there prevails 

 a better system of culture, a more refined population, higher energy, a better morality, and in all things 

 a happier condition both for the permanent welfare of the people and good of the state. It is under 

 such circumstances that the merit and adaptation of every new plant deemed useful for food, or in the 

 arts, will not only be cheerfully and intelligently tested, but its value will be made available. Under 

 such circumstances the crops seldom fail, nor do the lands grow poor; the people arc not addicted to 

 efforts in short roads to fortune by impositions of marvellous productions at fabulous prices, and it is 

 but seldom they arc the victims of such. They never find abundant crops ruinous, nor realize the 

 fertility of their fields only with chagrin. Home demand for many products stimulates variety in 

 cultivation, and increases the capacity of the soil, and as in this country scarcity seldom attends more 

 than one staple production in a season, and then only to a limited extent, the nation is protected from 

 all danger of want or famine so paralyzing to every interest, and so much feared in countries of more 

 dense population, and of smaller area. The state or kingdom, therefore, which pursues a policy best 

 adapted to consume as food, or in manufactures, the products of the soil, confers the greatest possible 

 benefit, not only on that portion of its people engaged in agriculture, but upon all classes of population; 

 and the most enlightened farmers only desire that the general government abstain from all legislation 

 tending to make precarious a sure remunerative demand for its products, and observation proves that 

 those who depend much for direct aid from government arc not of that numerous class in our country 

 who by their industry, energy, and success, present noble examples for imitation, and elevate and 

 distinguish the pursuit of husbandry. There is not anything but confidence in certain adequate 

 remuneration that will insure heavy crops of grain and grass, choice breeds of live-stock, produce good 

 fruits, good wine, and develop an improved agricultural literature, and without such inducement we 

 would no sooner expect the farmer to raise supplies of cither, if the government should devote all its 

 revenues to the free distribution of seeds and plants, than we would expect the mechanic arts to 

 flourish without a demand for their products, should the government distribute gratuitously the tools of 

 trade ; and there rests no more obligation upon the state to legislate specially for the one interest 

 than for the other. By the anomalous policy at present pursued to promote agriculture, the govern 

 ment is sure to incur a large outlay of funds, often resulting in loss of time and disappointment to 

 individuals, and it is an inevitable consequence of failure to equal cherished expectations, to perceive 

 , recourse to some novel fallacious expedients to blunt the edge of disappointment, or raise new hopes 

 at the same time charging iniquity or folly upon former administrators, rather than admit the impracti 

 cability of the resort and confess its failure. It was a remark of Buffon, that in &quot;agriculture, as in all 

 other arts, the model which performs best in small, oftentimes will not execute in great;&quot; but our 

 people have been too much tempted by highly colored representations, to build hopes on something 

 new, which, although procured at much outlay, has not so much as been previously tested as to its 

 adaption to our climate or soil by the most limited trial. 



That we might advantageously imitate the example of other countries in maintaining public 

 parks and gardens, where all the known useful and ornamental plants of the world should be cultivated 

 under proper direction, coupled with facilities for instruction, no intelligent man will question; but that 

 would be quite different from a system encouraged and practised to the prejudice of that enterprise, 

 which would effectually promote the public interests by supplying everything demanded by the spirit 

 of improvement, both useful and ornamental. One half the amount heretofore fruitlessly expended for 

 the promotion of agriculture could be made to support an institution embracing the practical, orna- 



