themselves.'-..-When 'we. consider tins we mav well
C3i3c to wonder at the gullied hills, egregious blun
ders, and numerous faihrcs which mark the ca
reers of 'many farmers of Virginia. The captain
of a rrian-of war docs no work with'his hands, he
neither trims the sails, nor holds the helm, nor
heaves the lead. Has ho therefore no work to do?
Is he a drone ? Coufd the ship sail as well with
out him ? Far from .it 5 he is the very soul of ev
ery operation on board. Sovould it be with ev
ery Southern .farmer. His ofEce is to Jcnotc all
that can be known about fanning, (as the captain
does about navigation) and to direct, superintend
and control, the execution of the farm work by
them whose business is bodily labor. But it is stf
much caaicr to work with the hands than to do all
this, and men are so prone to seek their case, that
the farmer too often surrenders his high office for
a much iguoblcr one. The same indolent spirit
would make tho captain of a ship exchange places
with his boatswain.
What a sir :v : hould wish to shun a
high and v. ; which affords ample acope
and vc'r - " for the loftiest and brightest
int' " ! When will our young farmers learn to
? ihar true work, and endure the mental toil
z:ry to win the glory of it ? Yet must they
,. ), too how tc do all the bodily work of the farm,
l that not theoretically only, but practically j
and the better they so know it, the better farmers
they will be. Not because they shall do the work
hither with them ho more thinking mind than the
.'stalled ox ? Seeing do they see not, neither un
derstand ? Surely, surely not. We come hither
to get knowledge and ; to communicate it. The
prime benefit of these gatherings is that they set
us to thinking. Hence we get wisdom by hearing
and seeing, because and in proportion as we have
the power to think. Men learn to think by obser
vation, experience and education j and by inter
course with other men the latent sparks of thought
are kindled, just as the Ore of tho flint is stricken
out by the steel. Agricultural progress advances
with new aud rapid strides as men acquire new
powers of thought from observation and experience.
When our Fairs cease to afford them they will
have become efTete and worthless, and will do no
good to any but premium huutcrs. When their
value becomes to be estimated in dollars aud cents,
they had a3 well be abandoned.
I have said that the power to think may be ac
quired by proper educational training. I am quits
sure it may. But it is much to be regretted that
many of us begin our profession with such imper
fect preparation for the duties of it, that even af
ter a life-time spent in the work, we have hardly
acquired the faculties of decuction and generaliz
ation which are necessary for the discovery of
truth. Hence some in despair of establishing the
science of agriculture on the firm basis of exper
imental truth, have abandoned the work, crying
out with the Preacher, "vanity of vanities, all is
themselves, but that they may know how to have vanity." But not so. Truth, indeed, comcsslow-
it done, and when it is done properly. Neither! ly, but she comes surely to them who seek her
mint they withhold their hands from any kind of j right. .Men gn.cl at tho starry tirmameut mora
work, if duty calls them to engage in it. But their
daily work, their "appointed work which declares
their dignity," is of the mind.
Some men . speak lightly of head work as being
easy. But I do not know any kind of work which
wo are more prone to shun, or which men do less
of, or do worse. Of all my acquaintances among
my brother farmers not one in tour thinks closely,
carefully and systematically about his business.
The pther three are copyists, or tread the beaten
track of their forefathers flaring up occasionally
in fitful efforts of sickly and unfruitful thought.
Thinking is the hardest work meu have to do, and
hence we have so few real thinkers. Will any say
Farmers have no need to think Then why
have agricultural journals? Why have this soci
ety? Why these yearly avalanches of the people
on this most hospitable city ? Do men come here
merely to glut their eyes with sight-seeing, and
Orgc their inawiwith feasting?. Do they bring
than five thousand vears before the red streaked
apple, which fell at Newton's feet, suggested to
his mind the law of gravitation, and revealed the
mysteries ot astronomy. .Newton s mum was weu
stored with learning. Kducation had trained him
to think, else had that red streaked apple fallen in
vain as unnumbered ones had fallen before by ev
ery autumnal wind. If we would watch the truthi
of agricultural science, we must train the farmer
how to hunt fur them.
This brings me to the consideration of another
moral obstacle in the way of agricultural progress
which is the want of scientific knowledge. By
" scientific knowledge," I mean all that knowledge
of farming operations which a man may acquire,
either from books or from other men, independent
of his own practical observation or experience.
This may be a broad definition oi agricultural
science, but I think it, nevertheless, the true one.
I The science of any profession is what men have