Asriculiural Address. 31 
'o 
ture, is bound to afford his children the benefits of such discipline. 
In this way the influence of the rural occupation will certainly be 
felt. Where serfs and slaves are employed to exert mere brute 
force without knowledge or lands, who respects the occupation? 
But where the nobler and best trained minds have employed their 
own hands with the highest pleasure — as did the great Washing- 
ton, and a host besides, whose names are scarcely obscured by 
even that great name — who has so little of human nature as not to 
envy the occupation? Wealth as well as influence, comes ordi- 
narily from knowledge. " Scientific husbandry," included in our 
idea of the requisite education of the farmer, " is the investigation 
of the mutual adaptation of the three kingdoms of nature to each 
other, and the appliance to agriculture of the fixed principles thus 
obtained." I stand not up here to instruct in the best modes of 
farming. I am not a farmer. In all my remarks, I only advance 
general principles. It seems impossible for common sense to 
judge that any mode of farming conducted contrary to the fixed 
adaptations of nature, can be at all successful. Farmers have 
usually found out the successful way by experience. Well, ex- 
perience must not be discarded; but it may often be corrected. 
Scientific knowledge of the geology of one's farm, of the compo- 
sition of its soil, of the best manures and fertilizers for dressing 
the land, may point out a shorter road than tedious experience; 
may lead to a mode of treatment better suited to the natural ca- 
pacities and adaptations of the farm; and may realize crops that 
shall repay much more than the usual cost of cultivation. This 
is not mere hypothesis, but the deduction of common sense. No 
reasoning can make it plainer, that knowledge to the farmer is 
influence and usefulness, and that it is wealth. 
The agricultural geology of our country has peculiarities of in- 
terest to farmers, inasmuch as the capabilities of the soil at differ- 
ent points are so various. The belt of the great wheat district 
of the state, commencing near the head waters of the Mohawk, 
crosses the northern part of this county; yet the capacities for this 
staple are not on this section in every place alike. The soil here 
is formed partly from the underlying rock, much of which is lime, 
