166 Scientific Agriculture — I:s Difficulties. [April, 



Again we are told, and told truly, that while our farmers are suffi- 

 ciently numerous to do by their votes and money what they please, they 

 are still indiiferent to the fact and slow to apply the remedy. The 

 blame rests not entirely with them The facts before them, and from 

 which they reason, justify the position which they take. They look upon 

 all the literary institutions in the country averse to their interests ; for 

 in their organization, management, adaptations, and results, the tendency 

 is to draw the minds of those coming under their influence, away from 

 the pursuit of agriculture, and place them upon something in their 

 estimation more honorable and commanding. 



The college was framed, and continues still, the type of its original, 

 adapted to those who have in prospect one of the three learned profess- 

 ions, Law, Medicine, or Theology ; and if the Farmer is led to patronise 

 the existing college, as he often is, by sending his 'Premium Boy,' he has 

 been taught to think while at home, and the impression is deepened at 

 college, that he must pursue one of these professions ; or otherwise that the 

 merest rudiments of the English language, is amply sufficient for him. 

 Hence, the most liberal course prescribed for those who are to follow 

 farming, is reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and, by way of extras, a 

 little grammar, and a little book-keeping hj single entry. The argument 

 being, that, ' Father has got along very well, icitli nothing like this amount 

 of learning, and made money.' 



Thus, have the educated and the uneducated alike, degraded and 

 rendered undignified a pursuit as noble, a profession as honorable, as any 

 that God ever made necessary for man to follow. There is not one that 

 admits the possibility or affords the materials of a richer and more varied 

 culture, or a more profound and thorough development of all that con- 

 stitutes the true man, and the truly great man too, than this very same 

 pursuit. An intelligent gentleman related to us this fact in regard tc 

 a son he desired to fit, as he said, for the profession of farming. He 

 sent him to a leading college in Indiana, with this instruction to the 

 President: " I wish my son to study those sciences which will best fit 

 him for the profession of a scientific farmer, viz : Chemistrj^ — Elementary 

 and Agricultural — Botany, Geology, &c." After having entered upon his 

 studies, and receiving his full quota of Latin and Greek, the president 

 sent word to the father that he had a verg promising son, and that he 

 had better qualify him for a profession ; that they did not teach 

 Agricultural Chemistry, and that there ^vq.s no profession of farming. 

 The president in this case stated to the old farmer a plain fact, and 

 simply pursued the ordinary course ; and without entering in this article 

 into the merits or elements of the course of study marked out in these 



