The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-08-28
8be Tarm.
For the Farmer and Mechanic.
Remarks of Prof. HOrner Before the
GOODWIN Agricultural Club OF
Granville County.

have chosen for our calling the noblest and
most independent of all the professions.
Our business is Agriculture-the business
il which more than half the people OF the
United States, and more than three-fourths
of the people Of our W State are en-
90 ped, and that too from which all the
other professions indirectly derive their
support, and upon which the wealth and
welfare of the world depend.
We meet together gentlemen, to talk
to exercise that faculty which exelts US
above all other animals, and which pro-
notes the enjoyment Of one of our noblest
instincts that of social in tercOurse.
We meet together to de wise plans for the
Advancement OF the interests of our noble
calling-to grow wiser in our methods OF
agriculture by q free interchange Of views
and by hearing the results of each others
experiments in the various departments Of
our legitimate business as farmers. If we
are not fools, we may learn wisdom from
the experience of others, and avoid many
calamities that might result from a blind
trial Of new and s~pecious methods.
We learn that during the past year, IN the
vast Chinese Empire, hundreds Of thous-
Ands of its dense population have persisted
for the want of food. This terrible calami-
ty would not have befallen that people if
better and wiser system of agriculture had
been practical. The people of that coun-
try with q wonderfully fertilo and produce.
tive soil, conine themselves almost exclu-
sively to the production Of a single article
of food. And if from an unfsvorable sea-
son the rice-crop happens to fail, the peo-
pie are left entirely destitute Of susten-
ance.
We may learn from this great calamity
that has, in this instance, befallen the Chi
nese on account of their unwise agricultural
policy, how important it is that we should
adopt q different system.
Net only should a whole people not con-
fine itself to any one single article of pro
duction; but every individual farmer should
60 diversity his operations as both to re-
1ieve the monotony of a single line of indus
try, and at the same time increase his chan
ces of success. Neither stock raising, nsr
tobacco, nor cotton, nor corn, nor wheat
should have the farmers entire and exclu-
sive attention.
Disease may Unexpectedly break out
among his stock, and in a short time sweep
away the accumulation of many years in
dustry and destroy his prospects for many
years to come.
Frost may nip in the bud the hopes of
the fruit-grower. The fly, rs has often
happened, may prevent the producer of fine
tobacco from putting a single plant in his
carefully prepared ground, or a hail-storm
may, in one hour, peat down in the soil
what a whole summers toll may have
brought to maturity. A long drouth may
cut short our corn crop. And our oat and
wheat harvests are always uncertain. But
it often happens that a season u%npropitious
to one crop is peculiarly favorable to anoth-
er. The farmer, therefore, who does not
build all his hopes upon a single article of
farm production, but pursues a wisely di-
versihed system, may gain in one direction
what he loses in another. And / think it
will be found in the experience of every
agricultural community, that those farmers
on the whole, are most successful who adopt
diversified system of agriculture, not only
in the crops they attempt to raise, but also
in their modes of cultivation. There is al
SO a pleasure and a beauty in variety and
different crops too may be so combined that
attention to one does not interfere with our
care for another.
As a rule our farmers are slow in making
changes or introducing improvements. We
are often too content to walk in the foot
prints of our fathers; and only occasionally
and, as it were, by accident, do we discover
and adopt any improvement in our methods
of farming.
Why then is it that while so rapid prog
ress is being made in all other departments
of science and art SO little advance is made
in agriculture
l have no hesitation in saying that 1 be-
lieve it is owing chiefly, if not entirely, to
want of mental cultivation among the farm
ing class of the communicate the little
value and appreciation farmers put upon
education. Farmers rarely think it neces-
sary to give their sons, intended for the
farm, a liberal education. They seem to
think that education is only necessary to
him who is aiming to qualify himself for
one of the learned professions. There can
be no greater or more fatal mistake. If
there is any class of our people that need :
more extended course of academic and pro-
fessional education than another, it is the
farming class. They need it, in the first
place, to enable them to make their infu-
snce more ssnsibly felt in the legislature OF
the country.
We are, as 1 have said, an agricultural
people, and the farmers having the numeri-
cal majority are rightfully entitled to con-
troll our State and national legislation, but
NV V,>sol- - Al.s. --- 1880