232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



This would enable farmers' sons to take broader views, and, as 

 applied to the particular subject under consideration, lead them to 

 think and to see what the necessities of their business would rei|uire. 

 Let those who intend to make farming their business, have the 

 opportunity of obtaining a liberal education — I don't by this, mean 

 such an education only, as our colleges afford. Let them when they 

 have learned to read, write and cypher, learn the more important 

 lesson, that there is something more to learn ; and when the primary 

 schools shall have done their part, give them the opportunity, from 

 which they are now cut off by lack of means, to step from them into 

 a free university, there to go through a thorough course of training 

 of both body and mind. 



Among the various knowledge there obtained, would be, perhaps 

 the least, yet not unimportant one, of which I am endeavoring to 

 treat. The buildings there, would of course be such as to teach by 

 illustration, the best methods ; the teachings such as to keep the 

 mind awake to the concerns of every day life, as well as to the 

 mysteries of science. Architecture there would have a place, and 

 improvements would be constantly suggested and adopted. 



The influence of such an institution could not fail to tell upon the 

 appearance of the country. Farmers' sons who might decide to fol- 

 low the occupation of their fathers, would bring from it cultivated 

 minds and a correct taste, and in erecting their buildings, would 

 unite the beautiful with the useful. 



A correct public opinion is another instrumentality to bring about 

 this or any other improvement ; this, indeed, is only a consequence 

 of a correct education; but there are other educators than the schools. 

 The press is the most powerful ; and when it shall exert its power 

 to beautify and make attractive the country, to lessen the toils and 

 increase the comforts of the husbandman, to turn back or stay the 

 tide of emigration from the farms to the cities ; it will have less 

 occasion to deplore the increase of vice and crime. Let each of the 

 three hundred and eighty-six towns of Maine retain at home, the 

 five or ten young men, annually sent out to swell the cities' popula- 

 tion; its own power would be increased, and the crime consequent on 

 the rush of so many extra gold hunters, meeting the certain disap- 

 pointment which, in many cases must result, would not have to be 

 mourned over. Make farm labor less onerous, and the pay in con- 



