ere the facts. Every person who was
regarded as too ignorant and uncultivated for other pursuits, was, by
common consent, considered as having a prescriptive right to farming as
a vocation. In fact ignorance was regarded as the proper and sufficient
diploma for the farmer. And as a consequence he was not only poor and
without influence, but too often considered by others as without
respectability merely because he was a farmer; and all that was conceded
to him--in fact all that he claimed for himself--was a simple
subsistence upon the hardest fare, without any of the luxuries, and very
often with a scarcity of the necessaries of life.

Remember, I am speaking of the farmers, as a class, _fifty_ or _sixty_
years ago--before there were any county fairs, or agricultural colleges,
newspapers or magazines, and when agriculture was the result of labor
without knowledge, system or calculation.

But although the farmers have emerged from this condition very slowly,
yet what is their position now? Are they not regarded as being on a
level at least with those of other callings in social importance? Do
they not occupy positions of confidence and trust in society? Are they
not found in our Legislative Halls in fair proportion with men of
different pursuits? This is certainly true: and the advance alone is the
result of a higher mental culture--of a wider range of thought--and of
an increased fund of knowledge, and consequently of an improved system
of farming.

And if the advance of agriculture and the condition of the farmer have
been tardy, as compared with the improvement in other departments of
labor--in other avocations of life--it is solely because science and
study have not as soon been applied to agriculture--and because also the
farmer has not been permitted the advantages resulting from so early a
development of facts connected with his calling as have other classes of
men.

But the great work is now fairly in progress of elevating the farmer to
his true position in the social order of society--of teaching him that
his vocation, instead of being the dull, unintellectual lot of the
ignorant, is the most noble and dignified, as well as the most conducive
to men's happiness in which he can be engaged; and nothing is now
wanting to secure the steady advancement of this work, but for the
farmers to do justice to themselves and to their calling, by laying hold
of the means for that end which are placed within their reach. A