1857.] The Claims of Agriculture, etc. 485 



tion for its successful performance. Were tlic next generation of 

 farmers all over the civilized world to be educated comparatively 

 with other men in something like the proportions of their calling, 

 luiman society would, at one move, experience almost as great a transi- 

 tion as when it passed from the feudal ages to the dignity of the 

 nineteenth century. Even an old Roman Author, amid the martial 

 condition of a proud, vicious and heathenish empire, had the sagac- 

 ity to see the paramount importance of agricultural education, and 

 the honesty to utter his astonishment at its neglect. 



■" Nothing equals my surprise," says he, "when I consider that 

 while those who desire to speak well select an orator whose eloquence 

 may serve them as a model ; and while those who are anxious to dance, 

 or become good musicians, employ a dancing or a music master and in 

 short that while every one looks for the best master, in order to 

 make the best progress under his instructions, the most important 

 science, has neither pupils nor teachers." "I have seen schools estab- 

 lished for teaching rhetoric, geometry, music, dancing, etc., and yet 

 I have never seen a master to teach agriculture, nor a pupil to 

 learn it." And the same is lamentably true at this day, and in this 

 boasted republican nation of agriculturists. 



It may be said here, indeed we have often heard it said, that "Agri- 

 culture having done so long, and succeeded so well, without the aid 

 of government, it can continue to do so." "It is doing well in these 

 United States, it needs no such aid." True, in view of the disregard 

 of Congress, to its claims, the people in self-reliance have been com- 

 pelled to exert themselves, for the promotion of their country's pros- 

 perity. Hence Societies, State and County, have been established 

 all over our land, demonstrating in every instance the great good 

 which could be done through a systematic and liberal effort on the 

 part of the States, and general government. The efforts of the 

 people are greatly diminished by the want of sufficient means, and in 

 the very nature of things must stop far short of consummating the de- 

 sired end. Associated enterprise has been brought into requisition and 

 has in some instances, as in the establishment of the Farm Depart- 

 ment of the Farmers' College, accomplished what is praiseworthy ; 

 but such efforts will never be able to pursue, and it is unjust to require 

 them to pursue such a system of investigation as shall fully and 

 successfully develop the great science of rural economy. Investiga- 

 tors and experimentors must be paid for their time and labor. The 



