TOO AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



cially so to these youths. In a moment of time there can be 

 learned of things more by their exhibit and scrutiny than can be 

 learned in many moments by statements touching them. Hence 

 it is at school botany is taught by the plants themselves when- 

 ever the laws that govern the evolution of plant life in its varie- 

 ties, species, etc., are being presented. In mineralogy, specimens 

 of minerals replace verbal descriptions of them. In short, the 

 natural sciences are taught by specimens and laboratory work. 

 Fairs, as museums and laboratories, appeal to the eye of multi- 

 tudes that could not be reached by books, newspapers and public 

 speakers. The objects on display represent genius as applied 

 to agriculture in its highest form, and inspire to emulation. 



Robert Bakewell, the father of the miodern art of breedings 

 who transformed the type of Shorthorns, becoming the parent 

 of similar movements for all the other breeds, is one of the 

 world's great benefactors. He impressed his art and its suc- 

 cesses at once on the public mind by placing on exhibit in Eng- 

 land from town to town a splendid specimen (in the white ox 

 that travelled) of his high attainments in breeding. 



Xo individual, viewing noble types of animals, can remain 

 unimpressed with what he has seen. Some, it ma}' merely hold 

 from a tendency downvvard in their farming, while others will 

 move in their methods toward a higher ideal than that which had 

 previously determined their course. Nor are such lessons con- 

 fined to animal life. Farm plants themselves are the product of 

 the breeder's art, and have their superior types. Mere grossness 

 is not the measure of success in plant growth. It is not a ques- 

 tion of size, but of symmetry and quality. 



Fairs, then, fill a unique field in the educational system of a 

 people, and in their dual purpose as object lessons and of harvest 

 homes, they render a high ser\ace to the public. If our reason- 

 ing is correct, fairs are a legitimate object of state support, as 

 are schools of agriculture, state boards of agriculture, horticul- 

 tural societies, or other methods of teaching the science and art 

 of farming at public expense. State aid to either Is rational and 

 defensible. Such aid is not, as supposed, in the interest of farm- 

 ers as a class, but in the interest of the entire state. Socrates^ 

 one of the world's deepest thinkers, spoke of agriculture as the 

 mother and nurse of all the industries. And Gibbon placed this 

 industry first, since the products of nature are the materials of 



