It is verily a great paradox, that agriculture should ever be held in low estimation. Such, nevertheless, is the fact. It is no uncommon thing, that we hear that even those who are engaged in it, and are dependent on it for a living, express a great abhorrence of it. Did we not witness the ridiculous absurdity of such conduct, we could not believe it true; for it is in opposition to the clearest evidence on which any hypothesis can be predicated. Who may not see with his own eyes, that on the products of agriculture, the entire life of the animal world — of man and beast — is sustained; and, that these products are the very elements of nearly every kind of business in the whole range of society? Were it not for them the animal kingdom would be blotted out of existence; and, the world itself would become one wide field of solitude and desolation. Yet, it often happens, that persons in other departments of labor, though dependant therein on agriculture, speak of it in derision and with assumed contempt; and, that farmers themselves seem to feel ashamed that they are farmers.

Let us look into the subject a little further, both in order to find the origin of such false conceptions, and to make their absurdity appear so palpable and ridiculous, that they may be discarded. Who does not know, that when the harvest is abundant, manufactures increase, and the whole country is prosperous; that, from one extremity of the land to the other there is an increasing hum of business, and on every countenance a glow of animation and joy. But, if Heaven, for a single season, frowned upon the earth, withdrawing its rain or its sunshine, or sending mildew and blight, and all this round of prosperity is stopped — machinery becomes motionless, vessels are laid up on their moorings, the efforts of genius are paralyzed, and the distortions of want and despair fill the places of departed plenty and gladness. It is but a few years since we saw famine, disease, and death spread over, with frightful visage, one entire realm, only in consequence of the failure of a single esculent. Nor were the effects resulting from the failure of the potato crop confined to one country. Heavy bankruptcies were occasioned by it in other countries; and, no small portion of the Christian world was brought to a solemn pause in its career of enterprise and business, and to engage in ministrations of charity. So important to society are the products of agriculture! So interwoven are they with all the interests of life !

It might be supposed, that a thing so indispensable to the existence as well as to the enjoyment of mankind, as the cultivation of the earth, would have received, in all time, the highest honors and the highest place in the affections of the people, as well as all possible attention in rendering it perfect. Such has not been the case. In looking on the works of man, it is seen, that agriculture has been strangely neglected; and, that this neglect has been most apparent in those most interested in its results. Great and successful efforts have been made in devising ingenious implements for working the soil, arid machinery for appropriating its products; but little among the large body of the farmers of this country, to improve the kind arid quantity of these products has been done; nor can this neglect be ascribed to any deficiency in the development of science. Science has shone forth with peculiar lustre upon the pathway of the farmer, but too often has it been wholly unheeded. A prejudice, propagated and handed down from one to another, and to which he has adhered with as much tenacify as to a choice relic of a distinguished sire, has bound him hand and foot. Till within a short period, rarely has there been found in the farmer's house a book on scientific agriculture; and. even at the present time, where it may be found in one house, in fifty it will be wanting.

It would be difficult to account satisfactorily for this general apathy on a subject of so much importance. At best, our inquiries will reach no clear solution. This is about all we know of it. The idea has been entertained, that any one can be a farmer; that a farmer is a mere spontaneous production; and that from instinct alone, and without the aid of science, he can perform all that is necessary in that employment; and, that success depends, not upon his skill, but entirely on the amount of physical labor he bestows. Hence it has been the practice, that when an individual of ingenuity and fond of research, or a youth of promise and fond of distinction, has appeared in the ranks of farmers, his attention has been immediately turned from the field of agriculture to some other, and, as has been erroneously supposed, more favorable department for the exercise of his faculties. The operation of such a policy is to deprive a rural community of its best talents; and, in doing this, to prevent elevation of character, as well as success in the development of its appropriate resources. This is inevitable. No other inference in regard to it can be drawn. We need no other evidence of this conclusion, than a hasty glance at the leading features of the process.

Now let us suppose, that a farmer discovers in one of his sons a taste for knowledge, and an inclination for reading and study. Does he give this boy an education to render him peculiarly useful on the farm, not only by applying to it scientific agriculture, but also by enlightening his father and brothers in this and other useful branches of learning? He does no such thing. He forever exscinds him from the homestead, in giving him an education for one of the learned professions. If he has another son of superior address and enterprise, he is sent to the city to become a clerk with a merchant. And, if he has one that evinces unusual genius in the construction of curious things, he is fitted to become an artisan. The remaining one, two. or more, for a supposed want of talents, are doomed without education, saving knowing a little of arithmetic, and how to read and write, to work on the farm. This course necessarily induces the favored boys to despise the occupation of their father, and to feel that it is an employment unworthy of their talents, while those who are destined to it not only feel themselves degraded, but are taught thereby to believe that nothing but muscular strength is needed in the performance of their own duties.

It may be well to note the career of these neglected boys, who are pronounced destitute of genius and competent only to cultivate the ground. Is it possible they should not feel degraded? Is it possible that whatever of talents are possessed by them should not become paralyzed and stagnated. They have been told, in a way that cannot be mistaken, that they are inferior to their brothers, and that they must spend their life in a service requiring no more thought than that of the ox who is to toil in company with them. Nor does the mischief end on the premises where this takes place. The tale is told to others; it spreads through the neighborhood; it is known throughout the town or the county; it becomes an element of public opinion, that agriculture is a servile employment, requiring only the lowest grade of talent. With such dogmas in the community, so far as they have weight, is it strange that the mass of agriculturists should place a low estimate on their vocation as well as on themselves? How could it be otherwise? Not to suppose it would indicate an entire ignorance of human sympathy and metaphysical science. Human opinions are ordinarily the result of some conventional influence; in this matter, especially, and in all others, to a great extent.

Under the influence of such prejudices and erroneous opinions, the farmer begins to cultivate the ground. His aspirations rise not above a comfortable subsistence. He dreams not of acquiring reputation in society like that of men in other spheres of life; or, of acquiring property, unless by the most intense personal application to toil, and by self-deprivation. He views his own career to be as monotonous as that of the traveler who traverses a South American pampas, or one of our own western prairies, having no diversification of scenery, and the immeasurable plain in every direction uniting with the concave sky; and, in unmitigated and unvaried physical effort like that of the culprit doomed to spend his days on a tread-mill. Apprehending no change, he soon becomes attached to this very monotony, and to whatever his labors have been associated with it. And after a while, although he may look upon it with a kind of sullen abhorrence, he would cleave to it, if from no other motive, because he would imagine himself not at home elsewhere.

Those who commence an agricultural course of labor in the manner we have supposed, ere long become firmly wedded to their own forms and usages, and guarding them, as is natural, with a jealous eye, delight in being able to look back and say that they have not departed from the ways of their fathers. A certain degree of reverence for antiquity, and the habits of a past generation, is seemingly an instinct of man, and is not to be treated with severity. Indeed, it might perhaps be well, if there were more of it in our country than we usually witness. It is almost exclusively in rural life that we are enabled to gaze upon the evidences of this lovely attribute of human sympathy. "While in the city there is an universal impatience for change and novelty, in the breast of the farmer is an unfailing depository for reverence to things that come from and are associated with those who sleep in dust. In this trait of rural character we can readily find an apology for some of the evil incident to it. Nevertheless they should not, as they frequently do, give it scope to the hindrance of increasing knowledge. But we well know that having formed an adherence to the time-honored customs of their progenitors in tilling the ground sufficient to give them a comfortable subsistence, they recognize no means of increase other than an increase of toil; and a labor-saving machine for a long time is treated by them with suspicion, as being merely an instrument for the encouragement of idleness.

The respectability and the amount of profits in agriculture depend entirely upon the policy with which farmers pursue their vocation. If they desire to see it duly honored in public estimation, they must not dishonor it themselves. If they desire to see those of other occupations engage in it, they must on no account evince an aversion to it, or a desire to forsake it. And if they would have their sons place a just appreciation upon agriculture, give them a good education, and then it may be presumed the vocation will be rendered additionally lucrative' and honorable. Let youth grow up with as much ambition to excel in farming, and to make it profitable, as is requisite with those of a corresponding age in mechanic trades, mercantile pursuits, and the learned professions, and we shall witness a new era in rural economy, Let these directions be observed, and we shall hear no more complaints among farmers, that they are not properly remunerated for their labor, or that their vocation is less desirable or less honorable than other branches of industry and enterprise. Fathers and sons will both be satisfied with it, and they will be among the most honorable and useful members of the community.

It is an undeniable truth, that if apprentices and journeymen in mechanic trades, or clerks and accountants in the mercantile departments of society, or students and young men in the professions, were as destitute of ambition and enterprise, and as slovenly in their habits of attention to business, as boys and young men usually are on the farm, not one in a thousand would find success, and seven-eighths of them would die paupers. With all these there must be an unwearied vigilance to discover every new avenue to patronage, to the acquisition of wealth, and to honorable fame, or sad indeed -will be the memoir of their life. Without this vigilance who have ever reached a proud eminence? Without it, who have ever become the pride of their country? Without it, who have ever established a family name that became a cherished legacy to a succeeding generation? Rarely one may have done it; rarely something like irrepressible destiny may have led to such a result; but it was only an exception to a law that is nearly universal. No one can calculate on this. No one should presume it within his own reach.

But, where is a corresponding ambition or vigilance with young farmers? Allusion is not made here to severe manual labor; to an intense application to toil, ten or twelve, or fourteen hours each day; to great feats of physical power or endurance! Something besides this is needful. Where, then, is their ambition to improve the general appearance of the farm? To cause the family mansion, the barns, the stables, the outbuildings, the fences, the courtyards, the gardens, to present an aspect of neatness, durability, arid well-defined beauty? Where is their vigilance to avail themselves of every implement for the work of the farm that will save enough each season to pay for itself? Where is their vigilance in collecting fertilizing agents and improving their mode of tillage and their breeds of stock so as to double the annual profits of their labor! This is what they ought to do. This is what can be done. When not occupied in manual labor, let them cultivate and improve their minds in reference to higher attainments in agriculture, and they will soon find that their heads are of more value than their hands — that the usually unoccupied season of winter and stormy weather can be made of more avail than that which is devoted to the most severe and unremitting physical toil.

Agriculture is not only the means of supporting life, but it is to be venerated for its antiquity. Its origin has priority over all other arts. This fact alone should give it a deep place in our affections. It might seem, therefore, that the individual which casts reproach upon it is incapable of just appreciation and of logical deduction; and, that he is a stranger to refined moral perception, as well as guilty of a species of impiety. It is an attribute of our nature, and a dictate of revealed religion that we reverence the institutions of Heaven. Is not agriculture one of these institutions? Is it not the first of them? Did not man receive his commission to till the ground from the Deity himself? Was it not, too, on the very completion of the material creation, as if to constitute man his associate in a ministration of beneficence, that God placed him in the garden of Paradise, to dress it and keep it? And, as if to make this labor of man a sacred adjunct to the labor of Heaven while imparting life and joy to God's rational creatures in all corning life, was not the commission for it bestowed the very day of nature's grand jubilee, when the morning stars shouted and sang in a loud anthem of praise? Was as it not granted beneath the delightful bowers of Eden, where fragrant odors and spicy aromas floated on every breeze!

To our apprehension, the circumstances attendant on the institution of agriculture, should give it the same pre-eminence in physical economy that the Christian ministry has in the moral world; a pre-eminence that should shield it from reproach and desecration of every kind. These circumstances have an impressive sanctity which cannot be resisted by the well-trained mind. In order to see an object in the full splendor of its own beauty, we are often constrained to place it in company with other objects. Thus, how much more beautiful appears each hue of the rainbow when placed in juxtaposition with the others, than though it were seen alone!

And thus many of the institutions of life derive much of their overpowering persuasion from the array of influences in which they had birth. Is it not much the case in the institution and solemnization of matrimony? If the parties to this holy allegiance make their vows in private, how little is there to cause deep impressions on themselves or others? But, when these vows are made at the altar, before the congregation of the church, amidst the ardent excitement of parents and friends, with all the responsibilities and solicitudes of the future to overwhelm them, how does the occasion gather pathos and undying sanctity, for a seal to their plighted faith? And, if we would contemplate American Independence in all its inbred sublimity, we must, in imagination, carry ourselves to the Hall where the fathers of the Republic were inscribing, amidst the ringing of bells and the shouts of freemen, their names upon that chart of human liberty. So our awe and reverence, in a multitude of cases, arise rather from a magnificent display of attending circumstances, than from any abstract convictions of a particular truth. Hence, as much as we may love agriculture for its power to administer to human wants, we cannot be unmindful of the moral grandeur with which man was commissioned to be its minister. In the one view, we experience a rational conviction. In the other, we involuntarily yield ourselves up to a social impulse as sacred as it is powerful.

(Excerpts are from The Farm and the Fireside by John L. Blake, © 1852 Alden, Beardsley and Company)