1884.] QUESTION BOX. 205 



is being improved. Experiments are made on lands that are 

 run out; methods are adopted, work is done, results accom- 

 plished, and these boys see them. And while they are doing 

 it, the scientific side of agriculture is shown them. Now, if 

 we farmers will investigate that more, and learn more what 

 the object of it is, I think it will be a benefit to us, to our 

 children, and to the State. 



I merely wish to urge upon the farmers of this State to 

 investigate this school and see if it is not a place where they 

 can put such of their sons who have selected, or who feel as 

 if they would select farming as their occupation in life. I 

 believe the more you examine into this matter the more you 

 will feel that this is an institution that is to be a credit to the 

 State and a benefit to your children, and the more you will 

 feel disposed to patronize it. 



Prof. Brewer. I will only say a word. I want to endorse 

 what the preceding speakers have said, and just add a 

 word to emphasize it. As our population grows denser, as 

 railroads throw New England, in sharper and sharper compe- 

 tition with the West, the farmer here must bring to his aid all 

 the knowledge he can get, from whatever source. Now, it 

 has been pretty well proved, I think, that a college is not the 

 best place for the education of farm'ers, although some farm- 

 ers are educated there. The young men drift away, or are 

 apt to, from rural tastes. That has been the experience. 

 There is a place for an agricultural school. It is the place 

 for the large number of men and boys who wish to learn 

 something of the principles which are to be used in their 

 future vocation of agriculture. But there is something a 

 little more than that. I do not know but there are some city 

 men here whose boys would not be harmed by going there. 

 I do not know that it is by any means certain that you are 

 going to keep all the boys on the farm after they have been 

 there. When some agricultural schools were started in the- 

 West, the boys that had worked on the farms went to the 

 new schools; they learned what they did not know before, 

 and when they went out, they did not all go upon farms. 



