12 Our Present Sy&tem of Agriculture, [January, 



investigate understandingly the laws, numerous and complicated as they 

 are, involved in agricultural science. This can not be done by farmers, 

 nor societies, nor clubs, nor lyceums, without proper teachers, without 

 apparatus, without text books, where problems long and complicated, and 

 extending to numerous and varied experiments, and often through a series 

 of years, are to be demonstrated. That science, agricultural science, thus 

 taught and applied, would be productive of the beneficial results pro- 

 posed, we are not left without experience. 



Mr. Eiddle, in his report to congress on the guano trade, in favor of 

 opening friendly relations with those islands furnishing it, incidentally 

 remarks that since schools of science for the promotion of agriculture have 

 been established in Europe, lands formerly producing but fifteen bushels 

 of wheat per acre, have been made to yield from forty-five to fifty. 



The Hon. Marshal P. Wilder, chairman of a board of commissioners 

 appointed by the legislature of Massachusetts, in an excellent and elabo- 

 rate report on agricultural education, gives us an instructive account 

 of the principal schools and colleges in England, Scotland, Ireland, 

 France, and other continental nations of Europe, with the great results 

 thereby efi'ected. 



This report of over ninety pages, from the pen of Prof. Hitchcock, who 

 devoted some months to visiting these institutions, furnishes a volume 

 of facts and arguments in our favor. 



There are now 352 institutions of all grades, in Great Britain and on 

 the continent, where agriculture is scientifically taught ; 22 superior 

 institutions which would rank with our best colleges, and 54 inter- 

 mediary, which would compare favorably with most American colleges. 

 These institutions are receiving the liberal patronage of government, 

 as well as the munificence of private individuals, and are working a 

 revolution as important as it is extensive. They have quadrupled the 

 quantity of produce from the same land, in many places. 



The rent roll of the Coke estate in Norfolk, England, was increased 

 in a brief period from five thousand to forty thousand pounds sterling 

 per annum. 



Prof. Mapes remarks that England, with her agriculture as it was a 

 century ago, could not now maintain her population. 



We may pertinently ask, then, if agriculture is meeting with such 

 favor under monarchies, where it never has been the policy to spread 

 knowledge and light among the masses, with what favor should efforts 

 be regarded for the enlightenment of our farming population, where every 

 man is a sovereign, in whose hands political supremacy most unequiv 

 ocally resides. 



