No. 85.J 391 



Again, nearly if not all works of any reputation, which have ap- 

 peared, on the subject of agriculture, have been too exclusively theo- 

 retic, or too exclusively practical. It would be by a union of both, 

 that a suitable work for schools could be prepared. And there is 

 another consideration which we are not at liberty to overlook. The 

 most learned writers are, to this day, divided on some of the great 

 and cardinal points of the science of agriculture. Saussure, Paen, 

 and Liebig, differ as widely in some of their theories, as ordinary far- 

 mers do in their practices ! Though this should prove no bar to 

 study and investigation, it shows that it would be difficult to even 

 prepare a text book which would be above all danger of teaching 

 error. 



In relation to the introduction of Agricultural books into school 

 libraries, there can be no doubt of its propriety and expediency. 

 Among our agricultural population, it is singular that so few are al- 

 ready introduced. It is, doubtless, greatly attributable to the want of 

 treatises of a popular character. 



I should be decidedly in favor of the institution of a State Normal 

 Agricultural School, with a pattern and experimental farm. I believe a 

 manual-labor, self-supporting school, — partly on the basis of M. Fellen- 

 bourg's school, at Hofwyl, — in every county of our State, would, (i 

 equally successful in obtaining students,) be of far more value than our 

 academies. Poverty would be no bar to entering such a school ; and 

 labor would confer health, and that spirit of self-dependence, and 

 manly industry, which would teach the poor to acquire and the opu- 

 lent to preserve the blessings flowing from wealth, or to encounter 

 poverty without repining, or a surrender of independence or self- 

 respect. 



Your ob't serv't, 



HENRY S, RANDALL. 

 B. P. Johnson, Esq. 



