675 



All true scientific men expect many failures and disappointments be- 

 fore one success ; and no man of experience will declaim against science 

 on this account. The improvement of agriculture must be peculiarly 

 experimental. So many influences bear upon the process of growth, so 

 complicated and mysterious and intangible are many of these influences, 

 that it is only by a patient study, and very long and laborious researches^ 

 and after many utter failures, that the resultant of the best system of 

 agriculture can be reached. I do not believe that it can be reached in 

 a thousand years. Indeed it is probably capable of indefinite and eter- 

 nal improvement. 



For this reason I am strongly in favor of agricultural schools, and 

 experimental or model farms. There are two old apothegms which, 

 embody a great deal of practical wisdom, bearing upon this subject : 

 "What is every man's business is no man's business," and, "in union 

 there is strength." It is impossible for farmers simply to acccomplish 

 all that is demanded. Even the wealthiest farmers cannot afford the 

 expense. It should be with farming as it is in the science of medicine. 

 It is not expected of single practitioners, whose time and energies are 

 absorbed with their patients, to accomplish much in the advancement of 

 their art. But the medical schools are expected thoroughly to examine 

 the subject in all its branches, to try experiments, to arrive at new facts, 

 and the single practitioners, while they may occasionally contribute some 

 new facts and observations to the colleges, are expected constantly to 

 avail themselves of all the new applications of science published by 

 these central schools. 



So ought it to be in agriculture. There should be joint stock com- 

 panies of farmere for the improvement of domestic animals, as there 

 already are in some parts of the countiy. There should be agricultural 

 schools and colleges, where the principles of agriculture, that are known, 

 should be studied, and where constant experiments in all that apper- 

 tains to the art should be made, and where it should be anticipated 

 that nine out of ten of the experiments should prove partial or total 

 failures, but where we might expect results would be occasionally reach- 

 ed that would add millions of dollars to the capital of the nation. 

 And lectures should here be given to all who will attend. 



Who denies that many of the branches of agriculture in our country 

 have been vastly improved within the last twenty-five years ? To con- 



