THE CULTIVATOR: 
A JSlontYiYj Publication, ttcYolcd to *1 gvicuituvc—each Ko. th pages. 
VOL. III. 
ALBANY, OCTOBER, 1836.—(67 State-street.) 
No. 8. 
PUBLISHED BY THE N. Y. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
J. BUEL, Conductor . 
TERMS.— Fifty Cents per annum, to be paid in advance. 
Special Agents. — Judah Dobson, Philadelphia—Messrs. Hovey, Boston— 
George C. Thorburn and Alexander Smith, New-York. Any gentlemen 
who vvill enclose us $5, free of postage, will be considered also a special agent, 
and will be entitled to every eleventh copy, or its equivalent, as commission. 
ID 3 The Cultivator, according to the decision of the Post-master General, is 
subject only to newspaper postage, viz: one cent on each number within the 
state, and within one hundred miles from Albany, out of the state—and one 
and a half cents on each number, to any other part of the Union. 
THE CULT1VATOK. 
To improve the Soil and the Mind. 
IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION TO FARMERS AND MECHANICS. 
We suggested some considerations, in our August number, with 
the view of showing, that all classes of the community, the profes¬ 
sional, the commercial, and the manufacturing, have a deep interest 
in the increase of the products of our agriculture, and in a more ge¬ 
neral diffusion of scientific and other useful knowledge, among the 
cultivators of the sod. As affording additional motives for provid¬ 
ing a better system of education, and of rendering agricultural and 
mechanical labor more honorable, more inviting, and more useful, 
we now submit a fourth proposition, to wit:— 
The moral and political health of the state, depend, in a high degree, 
upon the intelligence and industry of the country. 
Land and labor are the legitimate sources of public wealth. The 
first, to be productive, must be cultivated; and the labor of doing 
this is abridged by the culture of the mind, which is to guide its 
operations. But labor not only procures wealth, and the comforts 
and elegancies of life, but it induces, when aided by an intelligent 
mind, sober moral habits, and begets independence of mind as well 
as of fortune. Idleness, not industry, is the parent of vice and of 
riot. This seeks to bring merit down to its own level. Industry 
looks for fortune in the profits of its labor; and for the enjoyment of 
it in the peace and quiet of society, and the general prosperity of 
the state; and tends, by its example, to elevate and reform. Nei¬ 
ther an intelligent individual, nor a well informed industrious com¬ 
munity, are prone to mingle in the vices and tumults of the day. 
Hence the more intelligence we infuse into labor, the more abun¬ 
dant will be its products—the more honorable its calling—the more 
numerous its subjects—and the sounder the condition of public mo¬ 
rals. Knowledge and industry combined, if not synonimous with 
virtue, are at least a pretty good indication of worth and usefulness. 
Should not, then, the public mind be more enlightened, that virtue 
may more abound. 
In a government constituted like ours, which confers on all the 
same political rights—the same facilities for public instruction 
should be extended to all, that all may alike participate in these 
advantages, and become qualified to execute the public trusts.— 
And the propriety of this rule derives particular force, when applied 
to the yeomanry and mechanics of our country, who, from their nu¬ 
merical force, must be the arbiters of our political destinies, and our 
shield from every danger. They are emphatically the sovereigns of 
the land. Their will must control, be it for good or be it for evil. 
The character of the government must receive its impress from 
them, and its prosperity and happiness be ever graduated by the 
measure of their intelligence, their industry and their virtue. At¬ 
tempts to establish republican forms of government, have failed in 
Europe, and on our own continent, by reason of the ignorance, and 
consequent impotence, of the great middling classes—of the rank 
and file of population. Learning there has been restricted to the 
privileged few—while the many have too often been debased to a 
servile condition, or have resorted to crime for a living. Power and 
wealth have a tendency to corrupt the higher orders ; ignorance and 
poverty, to debase the lower classes ; which have jointly contribut¬ 
ed to annihilate, or to render impotent, the great middling clas¬ 
ses, which here hold the balance of power, and who alone can per¬ 
petuate our republican principles. Those, therefore, who are des- 
NO. 8.-VOL. HI. 
tined to wield this power, with us, should be well instructed in the 
rights and duties of freemen. It is a dictate of interest, as well as 
of justice, that our young farmers and mechanics—the future um¬ 
pires in all political controversy—the conservators of public morals 
—should be better instructed;—that they should be instructed in 
so much of science as may be useful in their calling, and as will ena¬ 
ble them successfully to compete with the products of foreign labor 
at our doors—and so much in general knowledge as will fit them for 
the civil duties of society—so much as, with good habits, will quali¬ 
fy them for the duties of jurors, magistrates, legislators—and good 
citizens. The moral welfare of our state, and the perpetuity of our 
freedom, demand a higher grade of instruction in our common schools, 
and the establishment of new ones, adapted to the improvement of 
all our great branches of productive labor. 
WEST NEW-YORK. 
This is one of the most beautiful and fertile agricultural districts 
in the world. The face of the country is diversified and charming— 
being flat, or gently sloping, on the borders of the great lakes; more 
and more undulating as we recede from these ; rising into hills, and 
assuming a more broken and diversified aspect as we approach the 
dividing ridge, which separates the great northern plain from the 
slope which feeds the Chemung and Allegany; and finally, sinking 
into the basins of those rivers, upon our southern border. The 
northern portion is divided into two great plateaus, or plains, terraced, 
and separated by the Mountain Ridge; which, starting from the 
Niagara at Lewiston, is cut by the canal at Lockport, and passing 
in an E. S. E. direction, forming a barrier to most of the small lakes, 
its identity is finally lost in the high grounds of Onondaga. The 
lower plain may be considered as having its eastern termination at 
Utica, and its southern at Ithaca, the first in the valley of the Mo¬ 
hawk, and the latter at the head of Cayuga Lake. This section 
comprises in its general level the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga 
Lakes ; and such is its general level, that the canal, running east 
and west, is uninterrupted by locks a distance of 69 miles on one 
level, and 64 miles on another; and a sloop canal, from Sodus to 
Ithaca, in a north and south direction, which is now about being 
commenced, will require no lockage, except near its outlet into So¬ 
dus Bay. The canal on the upper plain, from Lockport to Lake 
Erie, is also unobstructed by a lock. Rail-roads are being con¬ 
structed upon these great plains, in every direction, with compara¬ 
tive trifling expense; and villages are springing up at the points of 
termination or intersection, with the freshness and beauty of youth, 
and the enterprise and vigor of manhood. Dividing the country in¬ 
to three zones, the lower one may be denominated the wheat dis¬ 
trict, the one above it the grain and cattle district, and the higher 
one the grazing district, admirably adapted to cattle and sheep hus¬ 
bandry, and the business of the dairy. And we are not sure, that 
at no distant period, the latter will not surpass the others in the 
grand requisites of a prosperous, virtuous and republican community. 
The whole country is susceptible of a high state of improvement, 
and capable of employing and sustaining a population ten times 
greater than their present numbers. 
West New- Vork belongs to the secondary formation, and abounds 
in the vegetable and animal matters, which are the certain and on¬ 
ly source of fertility. Its soil is also endued with a property, not 
common to other formations, which, under discreet management, 
will render it a permanent wheat growing district—it abounds in 
carbonate of lime—it is a calcareous soil, in contra-distinction to the 
argilo-silicious, i. e. sand and clay, which prevails in other sections 
of the state. A calcareous soil is not only better adapted, natural¬ 
ly, to the purposes of husbandry, than an argilo-silicious one, from 
its better admixture of earths, but its fertility is longer preserved, 
and more easily restored. In calcareous soils, we are advised by 
M. Puvis, “crops, without manure, grow, feebly it is true, but 
without appearing to exhaust the soil in a sensible degree; in the 
other, [argilo-silicious,] without manure they will scarcely grow at 
all.” Again: “ Where an equal quantity of manure is given to the 
two soils, so different in their natures, its effects on the calcareous 
