498 * [Assembly 



be heard, and action must be had. Could we have the same con- 

 centration in regard to this as is had for almost every branch of 

 manufactures when a tariff question is before Congress, we should 

 have not only our Agricultural Bureau at Washington, but anag-, 

 ricultural school in every Stat(\, and the farmer would not be r^ 

 garded as a " clod hopper," but his profession would occupy a 

 position second to no other. 



It is a remarkable fact that since our existence as a nation, 

 not^t^ithstanding the language of Washington, Jeiferson, Madison, 

 Monroe, Adams, and their successors, only $29,000 has been ap- 

 propriated for the advancement of agriculture in 1:hese United 

 States out of its public treasury. 



How long are Great Britain, France and Russia, indeed all 

 Europe, to patronize schools for agricultural (ducation, and we, 

 the great mass of self-governed people, engaged in cultivating the 

 soil we own, not be able to point to a single one in any State in 

 the Union. Russia has an agricultural institution, with 48 col- 

 lege buildings, occupying 3,000 acres of land, and attended by 

 several thousand students, as established by Queen Catharine. 

 France has 70 school farms, in which professors are employed to 

 lecture on all practical and scientific branches of agriculture, and 

 I learn that that government expends annually, nearly 6,000,000 

 of francs, or a million and a quarter of dollars, in the advance- 

 ment of these interests. Belgium has 100 agricultural schools, 

 supported by the State; Bavaria 35; Austria 33; Prussia 32; 

 Great Britain and Ireland more than 100. While millions are ex- 

 pended in these King-governed countries, scarce a dollar compa- 

 ratively is devoted to the most important as well as incomparably 

 the most popular branch of national industry. Again, I say, why 

 is this ? I fear the answer is, because our farmers neither appreci- 

 ate their position, their profession, or the necessity of an agricul- 

 tural education. 



Value of Science. Since I have resided in this county, I have 

 heard this region decried, because of the prevalence of h»rdpan, 

 and that so near the surface as to interfere with the cultivation of 

 the soil. Believing, as I do in the great principle of compensa- 

 tion pervading all the arrangements of nature, and finding that 



