Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-05-13


inc his wasted field to some skinhint nelghbor,
flies to fresh fields with the fowl purpose to re-
peat the same spoliation and this annul exodus
which prevails over all the older States, and
even begins upon the other settlements OF the
new States before their remoter borders have
lost sight of the savage, painfully indicates
that we have reached the maximum Of popula-
ton our land will support in the present state
of our agricultural economy. Our skill must
be further developed, or here is our limit. A
feyer-and-aguish progress, warmed oy specuia-
tive excitments, and chilled by panics, may be
kept up while our unpeopled public domain is
supposed to be inexaustibe, and while those
who buy, buy to sell, and never otherwise In
tend 60 to drive" But there is barrier al
ready visible, more impossible than the Rocky
Mountains, the great sand plains stretching
North and South, commencing near the ninety
eighth degree'of west longitude, OF about the
center of Kansas, and running to the Rocky
Mountains. so barren of soil, water, timber
and all vegetation, as to preclude the possibil-
ity of settlement by civilized inhabitants. Here
the wave must be stayed but shall we not
prove unworthy of our patrimony if we run
over the whole before we learn how to manage u
part?
We are dilated with the notion that, asa nation,
we may claim rank with the oldest, best, and the
strongest Our population is rapidly increasing,
and brings annually increased demands for bread
and clothing If we can barely meet thisdemand
while we have freshIsoils to appropriate, we shall
early reach the point of our decline and fall.
The nation which tills the soil so as to leave it
worSe than they found it, is doomed to decay
and degradation. Other nations lead us, not
in the invention and handling of improved i'm
plements, but in nearly all the practical scien-
ces which can be brought to aid the manage
ment and results of agricultural labor. We
owe it to ourselves not to become weak COM
petitor in the most important field where we are
to NEST the world as rivals. 1t touches us IN
tenderest point our national honor as well as
our private pockets While we ought to pos
sess the granary of the world, it has been but
q brief time since bread-stuffs rose almost to a
starvation point, and indicated the possibility
that we might not forever escape the only test
that of famine, to which our institutions
have been subjected Able to be independent
in broader sense than any other people, hav-
ing an area ninety-fve times as large as Eng
land and seventeen times as large as Belgium,
yet over one hundred million of our imports of
the last fiscal year were products mainly of the
soil.
1t was not until Rome, deluded with military
conquests and luxurious living. had become
largely indebted to her conquered provinces for
her agricultural products, that the 60 populous
north poured forth the rude horde which OBJ
tanned the mastery and accomplished the down
fall of the Roman Empire.
Agriculture undoubtedly demands our first
care; because it's products, in the aggregate, are
not only of greater value than those of any
other branch of industry, but greater than all
others together and because 1t is not merely
ly conducive to the health of society the
health of trade and of commerce, but
essential to their very existence. But, while
it is the most useful and earliest OF arts
so sluggish have been its advances that we are
yet experimenting upon problems which were
moot-points with farmers two thousand years
ago. Surely an interest so superior, and of
such vital consequence, ought not to be left to
lingering routine, but the aid of science should
be invoked to accelerate its pace, until it can
keepstep with that of other industrial pursuits
of mankind.
The agriculturalists have been, within few
years, aroused to their own wants. Period
icals from higher point of dignity and influ-
ence, have fired their zeal. The eager crowds
which throng to the annual fairs of our agri-
cultural societies, from the National down to
" all the stars of lesser magnitude" proclaim
the universal hunger there is for a profounder
information touching that which comes home
to their business and bosoms. They know there
are mysteries dearly concerning them, and they
demand of learning and of science a solution.
: Daformed unfinished - oxnprimpntS-
-" scarce half made up,
And that so amely' -
will not do. Farmers will not be cheated
longer by unsustained speculations The test of
the field must follow and verify that of the lab
oratory. The half-bushel and the balance
must prove the arithmetic. The result must
support the theory. They want substance and
not shadow-bread and not stone. They
know well there is vast force of agricultural
labor hitherto misapplied, muscles that SOW
where they do not reap, and they demand light
demand to have their arms unpinioned
what has been an art merely to supply phys
ical wants must become q science-though it
wears.
&c holden gray and a. that,'-
doing the same service, but more sbundanty,
and also doing something to satisfy and elevate
the manhood of the mass of the people. Let
us have such colleges as may rightfully claim
the authority of teachers to announce facts
and fixed laws, and to scatter broadcast that
knowledge which will prove useful in building
up great nation-great in its resources Of
wealth and power, but greatest of all in the
aggregate of its intelligence and virtue.
The mineral wealth of our country. already
disclosed, assumes almost unbounded proper
tions but destitute of experience as we are
and largely dependent upon the skill of those
but half-taught from other lands, our mines are
much less remunerative than they,would be I'M
der the control of Americans, with some funda-
mental instruction in their vocation.
There is no class of our community OF whom
we may be so justly proud as our mechanics
Their genius is patent to all the world; Fol
labor-saving contrvances, their tact seems uni
versal and when any one of them is detailed
to do the breathing of any engine, he speedily
furnishes lungs for the engine to do that sort
of work for itself But they snatch their ed
ucation. such as it is, from the crevices be-
tween labor and sleep. They grope in twilight.
Our country relies upon them as its right arm
to do the handiwork of the nation. Let us
then, furnish the means for that arm to &C
qulre culture, Skill and efficiency.
We have schools to teach the art of manslay
ing and to make masters of " decp-throateC
engines" of war and shall we not have schools
to teach men the way to feed, clothe, and en-
tighten the great brotherhood of man 1t il
just on the part of statesmen and Legislators
just on the part of other learned professions
that they should aid TO elevate the class upor
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