FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 459 



or our families of them. The isoliitiou to wliich farmers and their famih'es are 

 necessarily subjected, as compared Avith those ^vho live in cities and villages 

 renders these home attractions a more absolute necessity. 



The homes that furnish to the youth of our land their most joyous associa- 

 tions and the means of their highest culture constitute the most potent of all 

 influences in the ])romotion of vi^'tue, and the parsimony that ^-ould make home 

 anything less than this is a false economy. 



That which I regard as being most of all essential to successful farming, and 

 as inclusive cf almost everything in this respect, is a knowledge of those natural 

 laws and principles on which the farmer is constantly operating, together with 

 skill or tact in the application of his knowledge in the performance of his work. 

 The highest success in farming never was possible to ignorance, and as time 

 goes on it is becoming every year more absolutely imi)ossible for ignorance to 

 succeed. The country that will henceforth command the markets of the world, 

 whether with regard to manufactured articles or the products of the soil, is the 

 country that can supply the best article at the lowest price. Since the days of 

 international exhibitions, a wonderful impetus has been given to all indus- 

 trial occupations. The aid of science has been universally recognized and 

 called into requisition, economical methods have been made a matter of investi- 

 gation and study, industrial schools, combining instruction in science and art 

 are being everywhere established, ignorance everywhere lags behind, and intel- 

 ligent labor alone can hope to reach the goal of success. 



farming was once almost exclusively the occupation of slaves, and then, 

 while most exhaustive of physical strength, it could hardly be made to produce 

 the bare necessities of life. How^ different the condition of the agriculturist 

 to-day ! His is now a profession enlistmg in its aid the natural sciences and 

 the mechanic arts, and in every branch of it developing and using the inven- 

 tive genius of mankind. Unlike ancient philosophy, modern science is emi- 

 nently practical. 



"Philosophy,'- said Seneca, "teaches us to be independent of all material 

 substances, of all mechanical contrivances. The wise man lives according to 

 nature. Instead of attempting to add to the physical comforts of his species, 

 he regrets that he was not cast in that golden age when the human race had 

 no protection against the cold but the skins of wild beasts." Plato regarded 

 science as merely furnishing amusement and exercise of the intellect, and in 

 no way intended to be of any practical service in life. Even the science of 

 medicine was regarded as purely an intellectual contemplation and not as some- 

 thing to be useful in healing the sick or strengthening the feeble. The science 

 of legislation too was a mere abstraction having nothing to do with the pre- 

 vention of crime or the reformation of criminals, or the building up of the 

 l^eople in the principles of patriotism, virtue, and honor. Modern science on 

 the other hand aims to be useful. In place of teaching men to be independent 

 of material substances and mechanical contrivances, it gives mankind such a 

 knowledge of these substances and of all natural laws that they are no longer 

 his masters but the servants that obey him. Science is no longer a mere intel- 

 lectual abstraction. It is practical or it is nothing. It asks to be judged by 

 what it has done to promote all sorts of human interests. While science has 

 been doing so much to aid mankind in all other departments of industry, rais- 

 ing commerce and the mechanic arts to a position that our forefathers never 

 dreamed of, it could hardly be expected but that it would invade the domain 

 of agriculture. This it has done, putting us in possession of facts and disclos- 

 ing to us laws that have changed the aspect of things in regard to this as much 



