9. I have resolved every summer for three years, to cut pea-brush during the winter and stack it in the shed; and every summer following, not having kept the vow, I have lacked pea-brush, being too busy to get it when it was needed, I have allowed the crop to suffer.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
Many county societies were formed in 1836 and for some years flourished; few of them, we believe, exist now. We hope that the day has come for them to revive; and, that the experience of the past may not be lost, it is well to record the reasons why these county societies declined.
1. Just after their birth, came on the fatal years of fictitious prosperity; when every man expected a railroad on one side of his farm and a canal on the other—and when everybody was about to be exceedingly rich; not by legitimate business; not by producing wealth; but by the rise of property. Now the wealth of a farming community is always to arise from the products of the farm. Whatever
withdraws attention from assiduous cultivation, or plants the hope of gain in other sources than in the herds, the dairy, the grain and the grass field, will, eventually, insure disappointment and even poverty, as many of our farmers can testify. It would be difficult for those who had not seen it, to imagine the fervent, sanguine, exulting, state of mind with which the whole community, at the time we speak of, looked for the wealth. Farms were to quadruple in value; pork was to be cashed at enormous prices; grain and grass, stock and fruit, were to swell the golden tide; and, for once, the world was to see great riches from little labor. Carelessness, waste, rashness, and incredible presumption were the result. Societies for the promotion of a careful and patient cultivation of the soil could not long be thought worthy of attention in a community which expected to be rich by a dexterous bargain, by one lucky speculation, by town lots, and shares, and that mysterious hum-bug—the rise of property.
2. Succeeding such days came the opposite extreme. Everybody was poor and expected to be poorer. There was no money and no market. Hogs were hardly salable, grain a drug, and all produce unavailable. Nothing was brisk but debt and debt collecting. Men were discouraged. Said they, “if one can sell nothing, there is no use in raising anything; twenty bushels an acre is as good as forty, when one can’t sell or use it.” Schools languished, public spirit died, business was totally deranged, and agricultural societies became extinct with the downfall of other useful institutions.
3. There were some things in the management of the societies which embarrassed them independently of these other causes. There was too much talk and pretension—wind work; the offices were taken for the honor—patient endurance of drudgery, which somebody must bear, was shirked off. Men took little pains between the meetings; everything was to be done at the time of meeting; and, of
course, half done. This led to dissatisfaction. The mistakes of carelessness were attributed to partiality or prejudice. Some dropped off; others relaxed; and, when the excitement was gone, few cared to take the dull but real and necessary business.
4. Notwithstanding all these things, the county societies did a great deal of good. A skillful farmer told me, that in the county, where he resided, there was hardly a considerable farmer who did not try a few acres, at least, to see what he could do; and even many renters exhibited specimens of fine cultivation. More attention was paid to every part of the farm; and, for a time, everything felt the impulse.