44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of a large majority of young men who need an education for agri- 

 culture or the mechanic arts. 



It is not creditable to our country, that while we have surpassed 

 most European nations in the number of our common schools and 

 colleges, we are greatly behind them in institutions designed to 

 teach the innumerable applications of science to agriculture, and 

 throw a charm around this noble employment. Only New York, 

 Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan and Iowa have each established 

 one, and even all these are not in successful operation. New Eng- 

 land is entirely destitute. And yet three-fourths of the people of 

 the United States are agriculturists ;* and it has been estimated 

 that nine- tenths of the fixed capital of all nations is invested in 

 the same pursuit. Statistics collected in the State of New York, 

 show, notwithstanding the enormous wealth of the metropolis, 

 the agricultural interest pays four-fifths of all the taxes. f Al- 

 though England is called a manufacturing country, yet the returns 

 of her income tax show that two thirds of all the net income from 

 the industry of the nation is derived from agriculture. 



Daniel Webster, after observing with his keen intellect the pros- 

 perity of agriculture in England, thus speaks of its great relative 

 importance : " No man in England is so high as to be independent. 

 of this great interest — no man so low as not to be affected by its 

 prosperity or decline. The same is true, eminently, emphatically 

 true with us. Agriculture feeds us ; to a great extent it clothes 

 us ; without it, we could not have manufactures, and we should 

 not have commerce. These all stand together like pillars in a 

 cluster — the largest in the centre, and that largest is Agriculture." 



An interest of such vital, intrinsic importance, underlying and 

 contributing to the prosperity of all others, especially deserves the 

 fostering care of government. It ought to make as ample provis- 

 ion for the education of the masses for practical life, and particu- 

 larly for agricultural pursuits, as it has hitlierto made for those 

 intended for professional and literary life. Recognizing, then, and 

 appreciating the fact that a large proportion of its citizens must 

 devote themselves to the cultivation of the soil, it should prepare 

 them to engage in it, intelligently and successfully, by such in- 

 struction as shall make them thoroughly understand their business. 



*See Patent Office Report on Agriculture for 1861, page 5. 



t See Report on Agricultural Education, by Hon. Henry F. French, page 277 of 

 the Transactions of the Mass. Society for Promoting Agriculture, 185J. 



