APPENDIX. 187 



other relation to tlie agricultural interests of the State, tlian a 

 military or naval school does to the army or navy. And this is 

 one most serious objection to such an institution ; for its char- 

 acter must of necessity be in the highest degree anti-republican, 

 and totally unadapted to our wants as a people. 



If the land was held by a few landholders, and the great 

 mass of the actual laborers tenants, under the direction of these 

 few, as the army and navy are under the direction of the offi- 

 cers, such a school would answer the wants of the agricultural 

 interests of the State ; but such is not, thank God, our condi- 

 tion. With us, the cultivators of the soil are the owners of the 

 soil. We have no great land owners to act as officers to order 

 and Cii'rect our agricultural operations, as officers of the array 

 and na^-j, wliilc the rank and file have nothing to do but obey 

 orders. Oti the contrary, as now situated, and as we hope we 

 shall ever b& situated, every farmer in the State holds the posi- 

 tion of comma\ider-in-chief, and of course, needs the qualifica- 

 tions for such a ])03ition. Hence any arrangement by the State 

 which contemplates anything short of this, is unjust to the in- 

 terests of the farmers of the State, and anti-republican and aris- 

 tocratic in its character, and not to be encouraged, much less 

 adopted by the State. 



Beside, it is well known to all intelligent men, that large 

 wheels move slowly, and that it will require much longer to 

 attain any practical results through the agency of any such 

 mammoth institution, " dragging its slow length along," than by 

 individual enterprise. And i\ is very questionable whether, 

 were such an institution established, private enterprise, in all 

 its experimental features, would not so far outstrip and distance 

 it, that it would become a kind of " fossil remains " of the dead 

 past, instead of the living present of " Young America." 



Such are some of the objections to such an institution or 

 establishment, in the minds of your committee. And it seems 

 to us, that although some benefits might be derived from stock 

 and experimental farms established in all the principal centres 

 of the State, if conducted by men of precisely the right stamp, 

 the benefits likely to arise therefrom, will not be proportionate 

 to the expense, nor as numerous as could be secured by encour- 

 aging individual enterprise. And we can see but one advan- 



