The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1861-02-01
. THE CALIFORNIAN.
farm, Garden and Hitfhen.
An Agricultural Observation-Disclosures
Societies.

.ion in the annual Executive Address for the
establishment of state agricultural bureau,
when it came up for engrossment, at the late
session of our legislature, was dismissed by
such an overwhelming vote, and elected such
marked disfayor from the able member from
Newfane, an uniformed listener would have
supposed His Excellency had recommended
the farmers to bring peuro-pneumonla into
their herds, ard that agricultural societies
were but the companions and result of "fancy
farming"
Perhaps, and probably, Vermont is not
ready for the establishment of such bureau
but this suggestion from the Governor,and
the paper read by the intelligent correspond
ing secretary Of the Vermont State Agricul-
tural society, at its recent annual meeting,
make it pertinent to consider what agricultu-
raj societies have achieved.
There is little advancement in merely till
ing the soil. There mus, be social inter-
course. A single piece of steel, although
containing the hidden clement can produce
no fire, until it strikes kindred steel. 1t is
essential that there be the development of
mind connected with these organizations
mental growth as well as the growth of
grains and plants. The intellect must be
plowed deeper than the fields, or the farmer
is mere serf of the sofia superior kind of
machine or drag hOrsc-a clown without the
clowns suppleness Or wit.
A few centuries ago. before modern agri
cultural society was known, writer Gescrib-
ed the times in these words "Rude were
the manners then "a man and his wife eat
off the same trencher ; a few wooden ham
died knives, with blades of rugged iro:, were
a luxury for the great candles were UNI
known one, or at most two, mugs of coarse
brown earthern ware. formed all the drinking
apparatus of house rich gentlemen wore
clothes Of unlined leather ordinary persons
scarcely ever touched meat, and in noble
mansions little corn seemed wealth."
This is history. Any one of our neighbOrs
compelled now to live. as the wealthiest of
mankind lived in those days, such neighbor
would excite our sympathies. A few hun
bred years ago, all the wealth Of kingdom
could not buy loaf of bread, such as was
exhibited at our recent fair, for fine -four
could not be made.
We have delicious fruits, brought to per
fiction by the intelligent experiment, grow
ing out of horticultural societies. We have
now in common use several kinds of grain
not then in use. Corn, for instance, then
generic name for wheat and barley, now
means grain then undiscovered. Then
crops rarely produced over ten or twenty
fold-now hundred is Il small, or certainly,
not an unusual return. Then the farmer
gathered the harvest by pulling off the heads
pulling up the stalk, or by the almost as
slow, though more modern process of reap
ing with the sickle. Compare those methods
with the great reaper of to-day, that sweeps
over acres in an hour. and leaves but the vel
low stubble of golden harvest. Then the
oxen trampled out the grain week after week,
and the winds of heaven, and the fan in the
hands of the laborcr. slowly, imperfectly and
wastefully, separated the kernel from the
chaff and straw Now the thresher with tu-
multuous whirl takes into its great mouth
thousands Of sheaves in day, and scatter
ing the emptied heads and straw and lallfn
rich streams, the separated gold grain runs
out upon the ravshed sight all ready for the
marts of trade for food for man, of tow, and
beast
This abundant and varied food, connected
with science, has doubled the average dura
ton of human life. and so far superior are
We to our forefathers, some few generations
ago. that the armor of the great warriors of
the middle ages. preserved in the Tower of
London, will not go on to the bodies or limbs
of their superior descendants. And yet there
are those among US who affect to sigh for the
"good old tines" when it is patent to every
intelligent man, there never were days in all
the world as good as now.
without agriculture there is no cnlight-
eminent" is a true maxim. We might rather
...b,, e
have the collision of intellects, or there is no
thought, of comparison or there is no COM
petition, of competition or there is less ex-
ccilence. We must inspect, colla,c, debate.
emulate. carry off premiums. The very dis
putes. contentious, quarrels if you will, inhe-
rent in the nature of all such societies, are
absolute essentials to their progress. Peace
here is stasnation, and stagnation in the mat
ter of agriculture is extinction.
Farmers, what position is yours-the
wealth of the world For gold is not wealth,
but only its more convenient representative
Commerce produces 70 wealth, but only er-
chanyes it, manufactures and the arts but re-
combine it and the agricultural society is to
You what the scul ptor is to the crude mar
bic.
Three times year the Jewish people were
commanded to assemble in one place At
the Passorer which was the sowing time .
at the feast IF Pcntecost, where they came to
present the first fruits of the earth upon the
affairs at the feast Of TaJermacles, where
they came to JOY over tie harvest home of