PREFACE. 



THE importance of agriculture as a recourse for wealth, and as -supplying the means of sub 

 sistence to all classes of community, is so well understood, and its relation to manufactures, so many 

 of the products whereof it consumes, and which it supplies with so many of its most important 

 elements, is so generally appreciated, as to render superfluous any argument to prove its value. It is 

 an interest which, better than any other, may be expected to flourish as manufactures and the arts 

 prosper, and it is of more importance to those interested in its advancement to understand its progress 

 from time to time than to secure any special legislative acts with the view to stimulate its productions. 

 Agriculture will prosper in proportion to the progress of population, and its employment in other 

 productive pursuits. In the early history of all countries prior to the period when manufactures 

 flourish, and the arts are cherished, foreign demand is relied on for the surplus products of the earth, 

 and the ease with which they are supplied enables the producer to incur the cost of their transportation 

 to market to procure certain necessaries and luxuries in exchange; but as a country becomes peopled, 

 the relation of the producer to a foreign market insensibly becomes less, until at last it ceases, except 

 upon peculiar emergency, or for articles restricted to climate With an intelligent people, where land 

 is abundant, the direct application of laws is of but little consequence in invigorating a pursuit which 

 will be prosecuted with greater activity only with the ratio of increased home consumption, as foreign 

 demand, with the exception of that for strictly climatic productions, is too precarious to justify any 

 great expenditure of labor and means solely with a view to exportation; and that country of any great 

 extent which never fails to produce a full supply of the necessaries of life for the wants of its own 

 population, will be sure of ability to spare whatever may be necessary to fill any casual extraordinary 

 demand abroad. Many persons are impressed with the belief that it is in the power of the govern 

 ment to promote the interests of the farmer, and that great and direct efforts should be put forth by 

 the state to advance the science of husbandry. In our opinion, however, the surest way in which the 

 power of the government can effectually promote agriculture, is by a steady and consistent policy 

 adapted to encourage the arts and give confidence to the stability of our manufactures; population will 

 then rapidly increase, commerce be promoted, internal improvements multiply, and the power of the 

 state will augment as a natural consequence. Political laws will not modify climate, change the 

 nature of plants, nor fertilize land ; they may occasion the distribution of cotton-seeds north and west, 

 but cannot insure the growth of cotton north of thirty -eight degrees, while private enterprise produces 

 8,000,000 pounds of tobacco in Connecticut, and will produce it wherever the conditions are favorable. 

 The enlightened wisdom of the world, if applied directly to the improvement of agriculture, would 

 not be productive of any sensible increase of crops, while any contingency tending to a greater con 

 sumption of the earth s products would be certain to stimulate the efforts of the husbandman, and 

 insure enlarged production. That which renders the pursuit of agriculture honorable and renr.mcrative, 



