468 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



applies to it. These he must learn elsewhere, for you cannot 

 teach them to him. Now, unless he stumbles upon them by 

 accident, of what practical avail is it to him that you awaken 

 in him a desire ever so strong to excel his neighbor in the rich- 

 ness, the variety, or the quantity of the products of the soil ? 

 He must know what to do, or it matters little whether he care 

 to do or not. True, it is better to care to do and not to know, 

 than to know and not to care, for the solicitude may aid in the 

 discovery. But otherwise man is only rendered dissatisfied 

 with his condition without the means of making it better. 

 These are some of the obstacles to be encountered by the 

 farmer in the discharge of the grand, crowning duty of this 

 day — the regeneration of the soil of Massachusetts. And the 

 means, not now within his reach, that shall enable him to 

 triumph over them in this great attainment, are the necessities 

 of the farmers of this Commonwealth, of which I am to speak. 



These means lie in an agricultural education. And for their 

 accomplishment let Massachusetts establish an agricultural 

 school where will be taught the principles of the science, and 

 their application to the art of agriculture, and let the doors of 

 knowledge be opened wide to all the sons of her soil — not for 

 the study of the speculative and mysterious, but the practical 

 and useful. It may not be for us as yet, to know the process 

 by which the fruits of the earth attain their growth. We be- 

 hold the spire of grass putting forth beneath the genial influ- 

 ences of the sun and rain, but the mysterious agencies Avhich 

 lift it from the seed to the full grown blade are, as yet, too 

 subtle and profound for finite ken. The trees in spring time 

 put on their foliage like a garment, but the tiny shuttle that 

 weaves the texture of the leaf plies its thread unseen. The 

 lilies of the field are arrayed in a glory surpassing that of Sol- 

 omon, but the pencil which traces their gorgeous hues moves 

 without hands, and is seen only by the great Artist above, 

 whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, and whose ways are 

 past finding out. 



But though it^ may not be permitted us to comprehend the 

 process by which the elementary substances of the earth are 

 transformed into the fruits we reap and garner up in barns, yet 

 we may know what those substances are, and where they exist. 



