ANNUAL REPORTS

OF

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

The abstracts of Reports from the several County Societies, required by the law of 1841 for promoting Agriculture, are herewith submitted. Arrangements are in progress for rendering these annual returns more explicit on various subjects-so that they may hereafter furnish a collection of statistics still more valuable for reference in connexion with the Progress of Agriculture in the State of New-York. The annexed Reports may be appropriately introduced by the valuable remarks of the late Corresponding Secretary (now one of the Vice-Presidents of the State Society) on the importance of ORGANİZATION for promoting improvement in Agriculture.

IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATION BY MEANS OF STATE AND COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

[By HENRY S. RANDALL, late Cor. Sec. of the State Ag. Soc J

I would suggest that the Legislature be memorialized during the present session, to extend the time during which the present Act in aid of Agriculture shall remain in force The effects produced on the agricultural condition of our State, by the Societies which have been orga nized under this law, cannot be regarded as problematical, by any who have added common observation and discrimination to the most limited opportunity for judging. The first great effect of these societies has been to beget a spirit of inquiry and emulation in re lation to the discovery of improved agricultural processes, products, and breeds of animals. There are few counties in this State where this spirit has not distinctly manifested itself, and produced its legitimate fruits. The bounty of the State was fortunately not sufficiently profuse to excite, by splendid premiums, the cupidity of those

who would be disposed to embark in a struggle for superiority merely in the hope of gain. It was just sufficient, however, to aid the enter prizing and philanthropic-men who love and are proud of their calling

to sustain a continuous and systematic effort in discovering and promulgating those agricultural improvements which discerning men must perceive are attainable-and which are imperiously called for, not only to render farming, generally speaking, profitable under the shifting circumstances which it is called on to encounter, but to meet a competition which the developing agricultural resources of other portions of our country will soon bring strongly, and if not counteracted by new efforts, fatally, to bear upon us.

The reverses of the last few years, following a period of unexampled success, have taught the farmer that no temporary and extraordinary rise in the market value of his products, should allure him from the bounds of prudence and economy. They have also taught him that to derive a profit from his capital, at all proportionate with that yielded by moneyed capital, during the collapse that is sure to follow such periods of pecuniary inflation, it is necessary to increase the quantity of his products from a given expenditure. In other words, skill and judgment, which, once obtained, cost their possessor nothing, must be brought into requisition in aid of labor and capital. The prices of lands and products can acquire little stability, until the profits of agricultural capital equal, on the average, the legal interest on money. If they fall below this standard, the farmer will be ever on the watch to convert his capital into that which will be more productiveinto cash, or property which he hopes will be more readily converted into cash than real estate. What multitudes have been hopelessly wrecked within the last six or seven years, in ill-judged and visionary attempts of the latter description-in rushing from a branch of industry, which, though suffering under temporary stagnation and depression, they understood-into unexplored regions-rash and fallacious undertakings! The diminution of agricultural products following such periods of depression, raises their market value. Speculation and panic heighten it, and for a brief period, as during the frenzy of 1836 and 1837, moneyed is less productive than agricultural capital. Then men in other occupations are as eager to embark in agriculture, as the farmer is, at times, to desert it. Over-production and depression rapidly follow. Thus there is a constant oscillation between extremes in price. During how small a portion of time do we have medium prices on agricultural products-the best of all prices both for the producer and the consumer? It may be said that the influx and efflux to and from agricultural pursuits, is but a change in the occupants of land; that the acres of land under cultivation in the State remain nearly the same. No lands, it is true, are at any time thrown out of cultivation; but on a farm of one hundred acres it makes a material difference in the investment of capital, whether fifty acres of it are kept in grain or root crops, or only five-whether the labor of five men and ten horses are kept in requisition, or that of only one man and two horses.

Taking the average productiveness of agricultural capital throughout he State for a series of years, it will be found to fall below the rate

of interest on money. Bankers and money-lenders have learned by bitter experience that it is unsafe to advance larger sums on real estate securities, than can be recovered at forced sales-which would not exceed from thirty to fifty per cent of the nominal market value of such real estate. What too, let it be asked, is the practice of our most sagacious and successful farmers, in investing their surplus funds or profits? It cannot be denied that, as a general thing, they find it more profitable to loan their money at seven per cent interest, than to re-invest it in agriculture.

It is said, that notwithstanding this, farmers acquire wealth-that as a class, they exhibit as many symptoms of prosperity as any other? This is true to a certain extent, but there are few who have not devoted special attention to this subject, who are aware to what an enormous extent the real estate of even the best portions of New-York are mortgaged to money-lenders. On this head, the records of our county clerk's offices, especially in the newer western counties, would exhibit facts as startling as they would be unexpected. And the great mass of agriculturists who attain to competence and opulence, succeed by rigid and persevering economy, rather than by large, or even plentiful gains. He who receives but five per cent on a given capital, and restricts himself to an expenditure of two of it, will, as a matter of course, accumulate more than he who receives seven per cent on the same capital, and expends six of it. In estimating the profits of an occupation from the wealth of those who are engaged in it, we are to have regard to these considerations. The balance between trades and vocations, requiring the same degree of skill and the same amount of capital is not properly adjusted, when it is necessary in one to submit to greater privations or enjoy fewer luxuries than in another, to equalize their pro

fits.

It

It is a favorite maxiin, and doubtless a true one, abstractly, that demand and supply, if left to themselves, will always regulate each other; and that a proper equality will be maintained in the profits arising from different branches of industry. But no nation, including our own, which imports or exports, has thus left industry to regulate itself. is not purposed here to moot the expediency of tariff regulations-and the subject is alluded to simply to show that the natural tendency to equilibrium and self-adjustment between industrial branches, claimed in the maxim, having been already disturbed to favor certain branches of labor, that maxim cannot now be urged as a sufficient answer against demands for legislative protection or encouragement in other quarters.

There is another consideration, besides the general ones already urged, which, though its bearing is local, presses home upon us the importance of fostering, by all legitimate means, the agriculture of our State. We cannot be blind to the fact, that the products of the new northwestern States will soon, nay, have already begun to compete with our own, at the doors of our manufactories, and in every department of our markets. Contrast the condition of the New-York farmer on his one or two hundred acres of high-priced, and already, to some extent, impoverished land, with that of the possessor (if an equal amount of capital is invested) of countless acres in the west-with a soil which is far

more cheaply and easily tilled, which is unexhausted, and seemingly inexhaustible-with the privilege which will probably endure for a century, and may for centuries, of pasturing his flocks and herds on the Government lands-with a but nominal, and constantly decreasing expense of transportation to the sea-board; and we cannot fail to perceive, that to sustain ourselves in a contest so unequal, better and more economical systems of agriculture must be resorted to, than are likely to prevail for a long period, where their want can be so little felt as amid the prodigal fertility of the young and glorious west.

That well-directed skill will sustain us against such odds, we have exemplified in the competition in agricultural production, so long and so successfully maintained by New-England against the middle and southern States. Her bleak and comparatively speaking sterile hills maintain a population as dense as that of the most favored sections of New-York. Her agricultural population know as little of penury or dependence, as those of any land which the Sun shines upon. Probably fewer of them are in debt, fewer of them die insolvent, than of the people of any other portion of the United States. No country moreover finds means to do more to advance the moral and intellectual civilization of her children. It is surely better that our agricultural population should be incited to emulate such an example-to withstand the competition of the west, as New-England has withstood our competition than that we slumber supinely until our chances become hopeless. Is it said that, as in the case of New-England, mere pecuniary interest will offer the necessary inducements to agricultural improvement? Emigration was not a resort so feasible, and so well understood as it now is, until long after the New-Englander had learned another way to protect himself-namely, by superior skill. Now it is to be feared that the former alternative will prove more acceptable, and be more generally resorted to, unless other considerations than those of mere interest are brought into action.

No more efficient means can be put into operation to arouse a desire for improvement-an active and energetic effort to compass it--than the continued organization of State and County Agricultural Societies, and the annual holding of State and County Fairs. These can be sustained, and at present alone sustained, by the aid of legislative bounties. There are those who claim that the tariff regulations of the United States, may and should be so adjusted as to offer every necessary encouragement and stimulus to agriculture. If this were practicable, such regulations would necessarily be general in their character, and would favor all sections of the country equally, which rear the same products. But whether practicable or not, and even admitting that the panacea could be so compounded as to meet one particular case, let us not always call on Hercules. Let us help ourselves. Let us act as a State, and protect our agricultural interests as a State. Let us immediately call upon our Legislature to relieve the public mind from all uncertainty on this point, by extending the present act in aid of Agriculture for another term of five years, or by rendering it permanent.

He who doubts the effect of means, in a pecuniary point of view, so comparatively trivial, as those brought into operation by the present

law, has not assuredly watched the history of our agriculture for the last few years. The sum of $8800, with an equal sum raised by the Societies, to be annually disbursed in premiums throughout the State of New-York, would offer but a slight inducement to mere avarice. But what has been the actual effect in awakening activity and emulation among our agricultural population? Let facts answer. Eight years since I journeyed to Albany to attend the annual meeting of the old society. About fifteen individuals were present-mostly citizens of Albany and its vicinity, with two or three members of the Legislature. The succeeding year, the meeting was about equally attended. And this may be taken as an average specimen of the efficiency and vitality of the Society. In 1838, a fair was attempted at Albany, and signally failed.

On the passage of the present act in aid of Agriculture, few foresaw its effects, few adequately estimated its consequences. When I had the honor to first move in the Executive Board that a State Fair be held at Syracuse, there were few who felt sanguine of the success of the experiment. He who gazed upon the countless throng assembled on that occasion, representing every town and hamlet in this State and nearly every State in the Union-as well as the brilliant display of animals, agricultural implements and products, could not but feel that experiment was already converted into certainty. The improved and advancing displays at the fairs subsequently held at Albany and Rochester, afford flattering promise that the spirit kindled among our agricultural population will be permanent and progressive, so long as our State government continues to extend its fostering aid to the Society.

There is another advantage growing out of these organizations and the annual gatherings of our farmers at State and county fairs, which is not to be overlooked; nay, it may well be questioned whether, in its ulterior consequences, it is not more important and valuable than even the direct and actual pecuniary benefits which will result from the agricultural discoveries and improvements, awakened and called into existence by these organizations. That esprit du corps-that pride, and interest, and emulation in his own calling, is alluded to, which, be it said with shame, the farmer has shown less of, than men in almost every other avocation. The agriculturist is not always true to himself and the dignity of his calling. How often do we hear him complaining of his lot, as one of unrewarded drudgery,-and how often do we see him struggling to place his sons in avocations where competence may be obtained without bodily toil-as if, in so doing, he was giving them a more elevated position in society! The fact cannot be concealed that there has been a too prevalent distaste for rural labor inculcated, or at least permitted to grow up, among the rising generation. Our young men fancied they could find readier and more genteel roads to wealth, than through the "monstrous drudgery," as they considered it, of the farm, and it is in vain to deny that the absurd prejudices of the old world, which assign manual toil only to the ignoble and low-born, have obtained a too general footing, even in a country, whose statesmen [Assembly, No. 100.]

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