AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 203 



friend here terms a &quot; blow-out,&quot; at harvest-home, &c., must be a 

 very gentle explosion, a mere flash in the pan, if we may infer 

 any thing from what he calls, in the other case, a system of high 

 feeding. I wonder what a Yermonter or a Connecticut River 

 boy would think, to be cautioned against excess and indulgence 

 over buttermilk and potatoes for dinner, and oatmeal stirabout, 

 or hasty pudding, for supper j and whether he would not be a 

 little surprised to hear a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding 

 spoken of only as a feast for state occasions, which he feels that 

 he can command every week at his pleasure. I give it, however, 

 as a picture of manners, which, while it conveys a useful lesson 

 in the wholesome example of sobriety which it exhibits, may at 

 the same time impart not an unseasonable admonition of an 

 extravagance with which many of us are justly chargeable, and 

 of which, accompanied as it too often is even by ungrateful 

 complaints, we have good reason to be ashamed. I am neither 

 an advocate for high nor for low feeding, but for that which is 

 plain and sufficient. It is certainly a fault with some of our 

 laboring people, that they expend, in the indulgences of the 

 table, too much of their hard earnings ; and it might silence some 

 of the repinings which are occasionally heard, even in the midst 

 of comparative plenty, if they could see, as I have seen, the 

 habitations of thousands and tens of thousands, where the sole 

 and whole diet, for men, women, and children, three hundred 

 and sixty-four days out of the three hundred and sixty-five, is 

 potatoes and water, and by no means always enough of that. 



2. TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 



The next agricultural school which I visited was that of 

 Templemoyle, in the north of Ireland, and not very far from 

 Londonderry. In point of situation, it is not easy to find a 

 place more picturesque and beautiful. The soil, however, is of 

 a hard arid rather unfertile character, but not the less favorable 

 for agricultural experiments. The farm consists of one hundred 

 and seventy-two acres, and affords opportunities for experiments 

 in draining, in the effects of various manures, and the common 

 operations of ploughing and cultivation, and especially in the 

 adaptation of the crops, and the mode of culture, to the climate, 

 soil, and situation. 



