ONE GREAT MISTAKE, 533 



merits, through the medium of the soil, all the varied and 

 wonderful vegetable wealth that clothes the earth, from the 

 minute lichen upon the bare rock to the giant monarch of 

 the forest which slowly accumulates its structure through 

 decades of centuries. The farmer assists nature in these 

 transformations, by such mechanical means as he may be 

 able to employ. Scientific agriculture should go still further. 

 It should teach why certain conditions were necessary and 

 how produced. This is what makes the difference between 

 the farmer and agriculturist. The farmer knows how, by 

 mechanical effort, under favorable influences, he may pro 

 duce crops. The agriculturist seeks to know why certain 

 causes produce favorable or unfavorable results, in order 

 that he may increase the one or guard against the other. 

 This knowledge has made a Colling, a Bakewell, a Buel, a 

 Meehan, and many other self-educated men. They, how 

 ever, bear no greater proportion to the masses than the great 

 oak does to the various trees of the forest. &quot;We need this 

 class of minds in our agricultural colleges, to develop the 

 practical application of science to agriculture. 



ONE GREAT MISTAKE. 



One of the great mistakes which has been made in car 

 rying out the details of this &quot; new education &quot; consists in 

 attempting to cover too much ground, either by making the 

 agricultural schools a part and parcel of a great university 

 course already provided, or seeking to erect those newly 

 founded into great universities. The agriculturist wants to 

 know something of many things, but it is folly to suppose 

 that, in order to acquire this certain knowledge, he must 

 follow out the science relating to a co-ordinate study in its 

 most abstruse bearings or minuter details. 



