14 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
and their intimate constitution. It would then be a better definition 
than that above, to say that to improve the soil is to give to it the prin¬ 
ciples which it requires, and does not contain. 
Young Men’s Department. 
From the New- York Farmer. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION TO FARMERS. 
by henry colman. —( Concluded .) 
What, however, is practical skill itself but the avails of knowledge? 
When a man does a thing well, even in the most humble mechanical 
art, we say he knows how to do it. Careful inquiry and observation, 
added to repeated trials, have taught him the best mode of operation. 
Now, may not others avail themselves of what he has learned, and 
save the expense of time and trouble necessary in repeating the expe¬ 
riments which he has made, and going over again and again the same 
ground which he has traversed? Is not the great part of all know¬ 
ledge, especially that of a practical nature, the fruit or result of expe¬ 
riment ? and wherever and however this knowledge has been obtained, 
ought we not gladly to use it? and does not even the most practi¬ 
cal man, if he has any pretensions to common sense, carefully and 
necessarily avail himself, in every department of business, of this 
knowledge, which has been the acquisition and accumulation of centu¬ 
ries ? May not this knowledge, then be communicated in, and gathered 
from a printed paper, a book, as well as in any other form ? indeed in 
this form, rather than any other, with many obvious advantages? 
If, then, knowledge is not only valuable, but indispensible in themost 
simple operations of practical husbandry, it is still more necessary in 
all its higher departments. The nature of soils, the nature and pro¬ 
perties of manures, the varieties of plants, their seasons, cultivation 
and uses, the raising of animals and the improvement of their breeds, 
the construction of even the mould-board of a plough, are all matters 
of science and philosophy; which come to the man not by intuition; 
which are to be learnt; for the improved condition of which, we are 
indebted to the experiments and studies of intelligent and sagacious 
minds, who have given days and years to the examination and trial of 
them; for which even the most common farmer, who opens a furrow, 
is greatly in their debt. To deny the obligation, is most ungrateful; 
to wrap ourselves in the conceit of our own perfected wisdom, and to 
refuse to avail ourselves of the result of other inquiries and expen 
ments on subjects, where we can only be said as yet to have reached 
the shores of the great ocean of truth, would be consurnate folly. 
We say that agriculture is most largely indebted to science. All the 
great improvements which have been made in the art, are due to sci¬ 
ence. Intelligent men, learned men, sagacious, inquisitive, scientific, 
experimenting men, the bright lights of society, who are always in ad¬ 
vance of their age, are the men who have led the way in agricultural, 
as well as in every other improvement in society. They have brought 
the power of mind to bear on this great subject; and wherever its rays 
have been concentrated, they have kindled a flame which has served 
to cheer and to guide the humble laborer, otherwise groping in dark¬ 
ness, to treasures buried in the earth, which, without it, he never could 
have reached, and whose existence, otherwise, he never would have 
suspected. Science, within' a century, has more than quadrupled the 
products of the earth ; has immeasurably abridged the toil of the hus¬ 
bandman ; and has made the labor, which he does bestow, ineffably 
more efficient than, without its aid, would have been rendered. To 
science we owe the improved form of the plough, which will do twice 
the work, with half the power, which could have been executed by the 
clumsy implement of not many years since. To science we owe the 
cultivator, the roller, the threshing mill, the cotton gin, the sugar press,' 
the flour mill, the spinning jennie; and but for science, but what is 
contemptuously termed book-knowledge, we must how have been sa¬ 
tisfied with wearing the skins of our flocks, unshorn of their wool; and 
have been left to the miserable necessity of planting our corn with a 
stick or a clamshell; and grinding it in a hollow stone, with an Indian 
pestle. 
What science has yet in store for agriculture, no sagacity can fore¬ 
see. If we may judge from what it has done, we may look forward to 
most extensive and more valuable improvements. Education is most 
important and useful to the farmer, in enabling him to avail himself of 
what has already been achieved ; and in qualifying him for, and stimu¬ 
lating him to, new advances. In the art and science of agriculture, let 
men speak of it with what disdain their ignorance or self-conceit may 
prompt, there is room and occasion for the exercise of the highest in¬ 
tellectual abilities; here, as in every other case, knowledge is power; 
and knowledge constitutes a productive capital; and here, other cir¬ 
cumstances being equal, knowledge will not fail to give all the advan¬ 
tages over ignorance, which it confers in any other department of bu¬ 
siness or of life. 
We urge the importance of education upon the farmer, as among his 
greatest and most valuable resources of comfort and enjoyment. The 
farmer, even in the most busy situation, but especially remote from the 
city, has abundant leisure for reading and intellectual improvement. 
There are many stormy days when his out-door labors are omitted; 
there are his Sundays, which, with the exception of the hours devoted 
to public worship, are usually uninterrupted; there are long and still 
evenings of winter, which, without some intellectual resources, are 
most likely to be spent in drowsiness, or too often in a manner far 
worse, at the shop or the tavern. What favored seasons are these for 
the delightful companionship of books ! what inexhaustible sources of 
innocent and refined pleasure are here opened to a man’s self! and 
what abundant opportunities for communicating instruction and plea¬ 
sure to one’s family! and with respect to the young especially, hang¬ 
ing upon us with all the confidence of affection and reverence, of 
laying a foundation and adopting the best means for their improve¬ 
ment! “ Studies,” says Bacon, “ serve for delight, for ornament, and for 
use.” Cicero passes a still higher encomium upon them, in his beauti¬ 
ful oration for Archias. “ Studies give strength in youth, and joy in 
old age. They adorn prosperity and are the support and consolation 
of adversity. At home they are delightful to us; they present no im¬ 
pediment to business ; they pass the night with us; they are the com¬ 
panions of our journeys; and they give a charm to our rural retire¬ 
ments.” Education immensely enlarges the capacity and disposition 
to receive pleasure from natural phenomena, objects, and scenery.— 
The scientific classification of the clouds makes them objects of new 
interest. The knowledge of the names and places of the stars intro¬ 
duces us to a kind of livipg and almost speaking familiarity and com¬ 
panionship with them, which enlivens the solitude of the stillest even¬ 
ing, and the most retired walk ; and fills the mind with noble, ele¬ 
vated, and irrepressible aspirations. Botany, chemistry, mineralogy, 
multiply, indefinitely, our sources of pleasure, and give an interest and 
value to objects, which we might otherwise trample upon without no¬ 
tice, or pass by with utter indifference. Natural philosophy, natural 
history, in all their branches, people every part of the physical world, to 
which we can have access, with objects of delightful and absorbing in¬ 
terest ; and to the inquisitive and enlightened mind, unlock treasures 
nfinitely better than golden treasures which are hermetically sealed to 
the incurious and ignorant. Before the farmer, the privileged resident 
in the country, the book of natural theology spreads its instructive, am¬ 
ple, and brilliant page. The most ignorant can scarcely remain al¬ 
ways unmoved by it; but study and science are necessary to read it 
with advantage and effect. The enlightened mind only can interpret, 
with a force and eloquence true to the original, its mystic characters, 
and penetrate the depths of its fountains of wisdom ; the enlightened 
mind only can see, in the greatness, grandeur, and glory of the works of 
nature, its overpowering demonstrations of design and skill; its wonder¬ 
ful exhibitions of creative power and wisdom; its exuberant, unbound¬ 
ed, and inexhaustible pourings out of beneficence and love. 
But I must stop. I fear I have already drawn too largely on the in¬ 
dulgence of my readers. I have thrown out these very general no¬ 
tions of the importance of science and education to farmers, as prepa¬ 
ratory to some more detailed and practical views, which at a future and 
convenient season, I may take occasion to lay before the readers of 
the New-York Farmer. There is, I repeat it, as it seems to me, no 
class in the community to whom education, scientific and literary edu¬ 
cation, is more important than to the farmers. There is no business- 
pursuit or profession, exclusive of the learned professions, whose situ¬ 
ation is, in most respects, more favorable to it, and there is none, which 
it would more benefit and adorn. Could more educated men be induc¬ 
ed to enter the profession ; or rather, could there be all necessary and 
suitable provision made for educating those who are disposed to make 
agriculture the business of, life incalculable benefits would result from 
it to the community. It would place the profession in the public es¬ 
timation, where it belongs, as among the most innocent, useful, hono¬ 
rable, and happy in which men can engage; it would qualify the agri¬ 
cultural class, whose character and influence so essentially concern "the 
honor and welfare of the country, for the right performance of their 
high duties ; it would serve vastly to extend the agricultural resources 
and multiply the products of the counlry, and thus immeasurably in¬ 
crease its wealth and power; it would diffuse, in unimaginable amount, 
the means and resources of domestic comfort and enjoyment; and, as 
in every other case of the advancement of the spiritual and intellectual 
over the animal and sensual nature, it would spread a salutary moral 
influence through all the circulations, and to the utmost limits of the 
social body. Meadowbanks, Nov. 1825. 
ADDRESS OF J. BUEL, 
To the Agricultural Convention, Assembled at the Capitol in Albany, 
on the 8 th Feb. 1828. 
Gentlemen —Land and labor are the principal sources of public and 
private wealth. The more fertility we can impart to the one, and the 
more intelligence we can infuse into the other, the greater will be the 
returns they make, and the greater our means of happiness; for it is 
I wealth, rightly employed, that enables us to multiply not only our own, 
but the comforts and happiness of those around us. Yet it is not a few 
