MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 17 ( J 



form a part of the retinue of Tom Thumb, that distinguished 

 American production, who has excited the most extraordinary 

 sensation in England. 



XXIII. MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 



There is an establishment connected with the agriculture of 

 Ireland, which is in the immediate neighborhood of Dublin, and 

 which I have visited with the greatest pleasure, and that is a 

 Model Farm and an Agricultural School. The national govern 

 ment have determined to appropriate seventy-five thousand 

 pounds annually to the cause of education in Ireland, to be dis 

 tributed, in proportions corresponding to the subscriptions of 

 individuals for the same objects, in parts of the country where 

 education is most needed. It is considered, and with good reason, 

 that the great want, among the people, is a want of knowledge 

 in applying and using the means of subsistence within their 

 reach ; that there is no indisposition on their part to labor ; that 

 there is as yet an ample extent of uncultivated land capable of 

 being redeemed and rendered productive ; and that a principal 

 source of the wretchedness, and want, and starvation, which pre 

 vail in some parts of this country, often to a fearful extent, is 

 attributable to the gross ignorance of the laboring classes of the 

 best modes of agriculture and of rural economy. With this con 

 viction upon their minds, the commissioners have determined to 

 connect with all their rural schools a course of teaching in scien 

 tific and practical agriculture, communicating a knowledge of the 

 simple elements of agricultural chemistry ; of the best modes 

 and operations of husbandry which have been adopted in any 

 country ; of the nature, and character, and uses, of the vegetables 

 and plants necessary or useful to man or beast ; of the improved 

 kinds of live stock, and of the construction and use of the most 

 improved and most approved farming implements and ma 

 chinery. With these views, it is their intention to train their 

 schoolmasters, and to send out such men as are apt and qualified 

 to teach these most useful branches. For this purpose the 

 government have established this model farm, which was begun in 



