Although business was looking up, Ezra Cornell still felt somewhat financially insecure during this period. In a March 21, 1858, letter to son Alonzo, Cornell wrote:

"The Western Union is doing better this winter than we expected it would. We had made up our mind to be contented if we got through the winter without running in debt, but we shall make something. ... With a little increase in these dividends and prompt payment by NY&E I hope to get along and pay my debts, but still the amt. I owe the NY,A & Bu Co. $10,000 worries me more or less. ..."

Concurrently, however, Cornell was getting more interested in agricultural issues. He was instrumental in forming a farmers' club and an agricultural reading room. Before long, he moved into the front ranks of American shorthorn breeders. In 1861 he was elected vice president of the New York State Agricultural Society, becoming its president a year later. As official delegate of the Society, Cornell attended the International Exposition in London in 1862, visited the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, attended various cattle auctions, made purchases for Forest Park and toured the experimental farm at Rothamsted. On the trip, he wrote a series of detailed reports for the Ithaca Journal, and his reports were published by the State Agricultural Society.

His interest in farm machinery led to his investment in the Albany Agricultural Works and the Steam Agricultural Co.

Adapted by Susan S. Lang from the Web site, "Invention and Enterprise: Ezra Cornell, a Nineteenth-Century Life."