EDUCATED FARM LABOR. 59 



educated in farming as the professor of mathematics, or the 

 professor of chemistry, or of Latin, need he in their depart- 

 ments. Nay, the farmer's education should be superior. The 

 science of farming inchides something of many other sciences, 

 and is therefore very complex. The farmer should know 

 enough of geology to comprehend the character of the rock 

 from which his soil is derived. He should know enough of 

 chemistry to understand the decompositions and recompositions 

 that are taking place in his soil and in his fertilizers. He 

 should know enough of botany to understand descriptions of 

 the grasses and grains which he cultivates, and the weeds that 

 infest his farm. Situated as the farmer is, in the midst of 

 phenomena, his success depending upon guiding phenomena 

 aright, he must have the power of observation and reason 

 highly cultivated, else he will fail to observe results or refer his 

 observations to wrong causes. 



If this is to be the high character of the farmer's education 

 in the future, I need not ask pardon in speaking of the soil 

 of the country, the first thing which you must study, and the 

 thing which you must ahvays study for giving you its geologi- 

 cal history. The divine must read church history — the history 

 of the Arian, Socinian, Calvinistic and Armenian controversies 

 before you allow him to go into your pulpits. The lawyer 

 must read Greek, Latin and English laws, he must read decis- 

 ions of our courts, he must know how and when the writ of 

 habeas corpus^ trial by jury, and that great mass of imwritten 

 principles, called common law, came into existence — how they 

 have affected society, before you admit him to the bar. The 

 physician, too, must study the history of diseases, the modes of 

 their treatment, and the elements of the Materia Medica from 

 the great Hippocrates to the present day, before you admit him 

 into your families. The soil has a history as well as medicine, 

 or divinity, or law, and the farmer who would labor with suc- 

 cess, must study it. In no other way can the excellent report 

 of your State surveyor. Dr. Hitchcock, be understood and made 

 profitable to those for whom it was written — the farmers of 

 Massachusetts. According to his classification, the soils of the 

 valley are chiefly alluvium, diluvium, sandstone and mica slate, 

 or gneiss. Where are they located, and what is their character, 



