The Arkansas banner., 1843-10-21

increasing three and founold, the productions of her soil, under the active and salutary ln- fluence of the very liberal premiums, which have annually, for fifty years, been distri-
 buted by her agricultural society. We sec
 France, growing wise from the example ol
 her neighbors, establishing national farms, and sustaining her agricultural societies by appropriations from her treasury; and we see the speedy and happy effects of this pa tronage, in the new impetus which has been given to the beet culture, and to her improve ments in her agriculture generally. We have seen our sister Massachusetts sustaining her agricultural societies by liberal annual ap- propriations from her treasury; and when the law making these appropriations had ex- .pircd, we have seen her renewing 1t, thus affording the strongest evidence of its wisdom and utility. We wish it was III our power to add, that New York, great as she IS Tn ter ritory, in population, in resources, and enter prise, had done something great, or generous, or just, to promote the improvement Of her agriculture, the great business of her popu- lation. We hope the opportunity will be afforded for some one to do 1t hereafter.
 The means which come legtimately with
 i'll the purview of legislative duties, for pro- noting improvement ill the productive arts of labor, are,-the dissemination, through our common schools, of the elementary prin- cipes of natural science, now become in- dispensable to the successful prosecution of the useful arts the pulronlzing of schools which shall simultaneously teach, practically, at least, the great business of agriculture, and the sciences which serve to illustrate, enlighten, and render it more useful and pro- ftable to the State to disseminate, through common school libraries, standard works upon husbandry and other common arts of labor; and to encourage the formation of county and local associations of farmers, with the view of calling into useful action, by pecuniary and honorary rewards, the la tent energies of our rural population.
 ssfhe arts,n says Sir John Herschell, ..can- not be perfected, till their whole processes are laid open, and their language simplifed, and rendered universally ineligible Art is the application of knowledge to practical end, If the knowledge be merely accumu- lated experience, the art Is empirical but if it be experience reasoned upon and brought under general principles, 1t assumes higher character, and becomes a scientific drt. In the progress Of mankind from barbarism to civilized life, the arts necessarily precede sci ence Application comes later; the arts con- tinuc slowly progressive, but their realm re- mains separated from that of science by a wide gulf, which can only be passed by a powerful spring They form their own lan- guage, and their own conventions, which none but artists can understand. The whole tendency of empirical art IS to bury itself in technicalities, and to place its pride in parti- cular short cuts and mysteries known only to adepts; to surprise and astonish by results but conceal processes. The character ot science is the direct contrary. It delights to lay itself open to inquiry; and IS not satisfied with its conclusions till it can make the road to them broad and beaten and in its appli- cations it preserves the same character its whole aim being to strip away all technical mystery, to illuminate every dark recess, and to gain free access to all processes, with a view to improve them on rational principles J
 The measures we have proposed are not untried experiments, or of doubtful tendency They have been adopted by governments which we are taught to consider less friendly to, and less interested in, the general diffusion of knowledge than our own, and the results have justified the experiment. The British government has caused agricultural surveys 10 be made of every county in the kingdom, and published these surveys, comprising fifty or sixty volumes, for the benefit of her agri- culture. The French government has had collected and published, under the supervi- sion of her minister of the interior, the agri- cultural works of her most enlightened citi- zens. She is now, througa=heH-central agri- cultural society, giving new and remarka- ble impetus to improvement in her agricultu- ral labors As an evidence of her zeal and liberality, and of her wisdom in calling forth useful competition, we are able to state, from documents in our possession, that she has offered to her farmers, for improvements in the beet culture, and in the domestic fabrca- ton of sugar, alone, bounties to the amount of seven or eight thousand francs, or one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. These premiums are to be awarded the coming spring. The effect of the competition which these bounties to skill and industry ere cal culated to excite, cannot fail to be greatly beneficial and abiding She has, in few years, increased the products of sugar from her soil to S0,000,000 pounds; while her arable and stock husbandry have been inn mensely benefited by the extension of her beet culture; and she is likely successfully to compete, ere long, in our own grain mar kets.
 The scramble for political power having for at least time abated, and our means of being now ample, the hope has been fondly, though perhaps vainly indulged, that considerations like those we have sug- gested, would press upon the notice of our and induce them to adopt such efficient measures for improving the arts of productive labor, as should command the generous applause of every age, and live in the grateful recollections of posterity.
 However apt we may be, in our fervor or frenzy, to subserve the interest of self or party, to forget the obligation-we owe du- tIes to our country-to our mhole country and to our God-for the performance ol which we must be amenable-which are par