San Joaquin Valley District Agricultural Society. C23 



legged ones, I mean — and the visions of the tedious journeys of the 

 plains rise into view at the very flap of their prodigious ears. 



agricultural education. 



Farmers, you are men advancing in years; you have sons growing up 

 around you, and it will be but a short time before they will be called 

 upon to fill the places you now fill. We live in a progressive age. 

 When advancement can be, and is not made, the retrogression is a sorry 

 one indeed. Agriculture is a science which embraces in its elimination 

 nearly all the physical sciences. We must understand chemistry, geol- 

 ogy, physics, mechanics, botany, zoology, and economics, to fully ap- 

 preciate it. Congress has caused to be organized a Department of 

 Agriculture, which, by 3-early reports, gives farmers in all localities the 

 different processes of culture throughout the Union. So great have 

 been the improvements in agriculture, that it has been introduced as a 

 science into the universities. Professorships of its different branches 

 have been instituted, and National endowments made for Agricultural 

 Colleges in all the States, to educate scholars and teachers, as well in the 

 practice as the theory of this great pursuit. Our State has acceded to 

 the terms of these National endowments, and they have been given to 

 her university. The law contemplates that not only shall the theory of 

 agriculture be taught, but the practice also, by the preparation of land, 

 the application of fertilizers, irrigation, and the dextrous use of farming 

 implements. The University of California has neglected to introduce 

 these auxiliaries in her system of instruction, but in the stead has 

 adopted a theoretical curriculum. Cornell and other colleges of the 

 East, acting upon the experience of foreign universities, have adopted a 

 system of practical teaching that has met with general approval and 

 commendation. The Grangers, last Winter, in a memorial to the Legis- 

 lature, petitioned for the introduction of alike system in our university, 

 but the Board of Eegents avoided a compliance with their request; and 

 the Legislature did not give the subject the attention they asked for it. 

 Theory is indispensable, but unaccompanied by practice, it begets an ar- 

 rogance in the student that hard experience can alone correct. The 

 agricultural neophyte, without illustrative culture, will find, after grad- 

 uation, that there are knacks which no theory can explain, and that the 

 persuasive eloquence of a hickory stick is better in conquering the spirit 

 of a kicking heifer or a fractious colt than any amount of applied 

 science. You ask a chemist where the greater part of his knowledge 

 was received, and he will tell you: in the practical illustrations of the 

 laboratory. You ask the merchant. He will say behind the counter. 

 You ask the printer, and his reply is: in the persistent lessons taught at 

 the case. You ask the professional man. His answer will be: his re- 

 search applied to practice. You ask the farmer, and he will say the 

 field. Theory without practice never raised a blade of grass, but pi'ac- 

 tice without theory has fed the world for centuries. Theory is good, 

 but practice is the crown. One is necessary; the other indispensable; 

 but full proficiency, in a science so comprehensive as agriculture, requires 

 the employment of both. 



MORALS OP AGRICULTURE. 



No one class have more to gain from a strictly moral life, or more to 

 lose from an immoral one, thau farmers. Their occupation, to be sue- 



