410 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



often desirable to avoid. I saw a field in New Jersey, which, 

 as its owner informed me, was completely run out, that pro- 

 duced two and a half tons of hay per acre at the next harvest, 

 after having been thus treated. 



Education is what we most need. Not such education as is 

 adopted as the end of the college course, and which too often 

 expends itself on the outer man. That is well enough in its 

 way ; but the education which the yotmg farmer needs is that 

 which teaches him the solid rudiments of nature's laws, and 

 familiarizes him with the principles on whose exertion his future 

 prosperity must depend. Farm schools. State and county 

 agricultural colleges, and all such institutions are laudable, and 

 cannot fail of accomplishing great results ; but they are, after 

 all, not general in their influence. The rich man's son, in them, 

 must have an advantage over him who cannot even spend time 

 to go from home to school. For a certain class they are excel- 

 lent, for the people at large they are not what wo most 

 require. Experience has proved that, as yet, such institutions 

 cannot support themselves, and it would be unfair to call on 

 the masses to educate the more wealthy few, as they must do 

 if government sustains them. Before independent academies 

 can exist, the way to their success must be paved by the 

 common schools — those monuments of the greatness of our 

 coimtry ; touchstones to detect the germs of genius among our 

 people and to arrest ' from the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean, 

 full many a pearl of purest ray serene.' 



Let the quiet influence of the common schools be exerted on 

 those who are now receiving the impress of instruction, and in 

 twenty years America will be peopled with a class of farmers 

 who will cherish their own and the nation's mutual interest, 

 instead of allowing the speculating few who now control the 

 press and the polls, to fill their own purses from the people's 

 treasury, while those who mainly supply it are not allowed 

 even necessary protection. 



