224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and cstablislicd by tlie iiitcllig-ont and persevering efforts of Sir 

 John Sinclair, to the honor of the country, the age, and the 

 individual who suggested it. The institution of a board of agri- 

 culture and internal improvements has already contributed 

 materially to the extension and advancement of the knowledge of 

 rural allairs. The state of the art in the greatest part of the 

 kingdom has been ascertained, a great variety of new and inter- 

 esting facts and practices have been brought to view, and improve- 

 ments in the instrumental and other parts suggested. Among 

 these the elucidation of the principles and practice of draining or 

 removing the injurious wetness of land, arising i'rom springs and 

 other causes, as laid down and explained by Mr. Elkington, is of 

 great importance and deserving of notice, not only as the basis or 

 foundation of many improvements in the art, but as leading to the 

 convenient and easy application of water for irrigation and other 

 purposes." 



This board of agriculture, so well described by Dr. Dickson, 

 and whose service has been so useful and important, is the 

 foundation of that system which has been introduced into our own 

 State, and whose business, as an organ of education, we have met 

 to transact. 



It will be observed that every mode of improving agriculture by 

 process of mental discipline, has had immediate reference to the 

 practical business of the farm. The most poetical and imaginative 

 of agricultural writers have always kept the farm-yard and the 

 furrow in view. The most elaborate scientific investigations into 

 the nature of the soil, the (qualities of plants, the structure of 

 animals, — chemistry, botany, physiology, — have all been subjected 

 to that hardest of all tests, the details of agricultural life. How- 

 ever broad may have been the policy, however large the design of 

 those who, by school, and society, and volume, have endeavored 

 to increase the wealth and power of the State, by draining its 

 lands, and dividing its fields, and protecting its forests, and 

 encouraging its productions, and introducing the mechanical im- 

 provements of the age, they have all been obliged to take their 

 stand and apply their knowledge and their forces to an individual 

 farm in order to test their value. And when a disciple of Liebig 

 applies successfully the theory of his scientific master to a lood vl' 

 land, Liebig's triumph is there. When the industrious and untiring 

 Agassiz finds the laws of reproduction, which he has laid down 

 after long study in tlie closet, practically applied by the intelligent 



