34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



IDi'ofited by the example. Our public schools practically 

 ignore agriculture, even in the rural districts ; and while our 

 colleges are creditable to our national reputation for literary 

 acquirements and professional scholarship, we need a system 

 of popular instruction devoted to the farming interest. We 

 need institutions, not to cram our young men with the dead 

 languages and the revolting mysteries of heathen mytholoijy, 

 nor to make fine writers or eloquent declaimers, but devoted 

 to teaching only such knowledge as shall be of scientific and 

 practical value on the farm. Instead of Homer, Aristophanes, 

 Horace and Terrence, let our young farmer be made familiar 

 with Newton, Lyell, Playfair, Liebig, Silliman and Agassiz. 

 Instead of being learned in the intrigues of the goddesses and 

 the wars of the gods of ancient times, let them acquire 

 mathematics, chemistiy, geology, mineralogy, grafting, Inid- 

 ding, fertilizing, and the history and practice of everything 

 connected with the pursuit which affords occupation to so 

 large a part of our working-classes, and on whom rests the 

 responsibility and dignity of producing the basis of our 

 national subsistence, wealth and power. 



Mr. rieischman, who was commissioned by the United 

 States, in 1845, to visit Europe to obtain agricultural inform- 

 ation, informs us in his instructive report, that some three 

 hundred and fifty schools exist in Hungary and other parts of 

 Europe, where boys from twelve to fourteen years are ttiught 

 practical knowledge of the whole business of farming, and 

 also so much mechanism as to be able to make or mend every 

 machine or implement used in farming. The teachings tend 

 to make them thorough economists, so that the farm shall 

 always continue to improve. They are not taught abstract 

 science, but positive knowledge, — soils, manures, rotation of 

 crops, the kind of work, number of men, horses and cattle 

 required to cultivate a given number of acres. Mr. Fleisch- 

 man remarks that the perfection of European farming is due 

 to these institutions. 



We are fortunate in this State in having the nucleus of 

 this much-needed education. The Agricultural College bids 

 fair to meet every requirement expected from the able 

 administration which now directs its affairs. But we want 

 such institutions in every county of the State, and more 



