222 ni.N'OTHERIUM. 



Agricultural educalion divides itself into two branches : 1st the prac- 

 tice, 2iid the science. 



The practice has a similar division as to number: 1st the manipula- 

 tion, 2nd the economy. 



Albert D. Thaer makes a three-fold division : 1st an occupation, 

 2nd an art, 3d a science. I prefer the view 1 have given, chiefly because 

 it forms the proper basis for a scheme of instruction. The manipula- 

 tion includes all handicraft practised in preparing, enclosing land, putting 

 in seed, cultivating the growing plant, gathering the harvest, securing 

 and separating the grain and hay, management of teams, dairy, store 

 stock, Sic. This division does not need much explanation 5 the mean- 

 ing of manipulation is fully understood. Skill in it can only be acqui- 

 red by practice. This branch of agriculture is old, even coeval with 

 agriculture itself. Even the farmer on the banks of the Nile, though 

 he does not plough, requires some skill in manipulation. Its advance 

 from the rudeness of the earliest ages has been dependant upon experi- 

 ence, or the influence of mechanical science in other artistical occupa- 

 tions. This part of farming is much ameliorated by improvements in 

 machinery and implement.'!. In fact it is that branch alone, which con- 

 nects it with mechanics, and may probably be almost superceded by 

 machinery, as the inventive genius of our people is advanced, and the 

 true combinations of mechanical powers and laws understood which 

 are combined and used by animated power, in each step of a manual 

 operation, and the varied obstacles to be overcome. Mind, to provide 

 expedients in unanticipated difficulties combined with skill in manipula- 

 tion, produces the wonders of art. This mind and skill have been 

 thrown into inanimate machinery, so that the result is obtained without 

 any new exertion of mind, or application of skill. The child now a- 

 days accomplishes the work of many men a few years since, and im- 

 proves thereon. The manipulations of agriculture are subjects of al- 

 most infinite improvement. The progress of that improvement can 

 scarcely be conjectured, either in its rapidity or extent, when skill in 

 practice is combined with trulliful and pure science, regulated by pure 

 motive, in the multitude of strong and active and energetic minds in our 

 land among farmers. 



DIXOTHERIUM. 



Bones of this extinct genus have been found near Orthes at the foot 

 of the Pyrennees, and at Epplesheim in the province of Hesse Darmstadt, 

 both in Tertiary strata. From the form of the molar teeth Cuvier was 

 induced to refer them to a gigantic species of the Tapir, but Professor 



