12 INTRODUCTION. 



ences a really valuable result, which would never have been 

 attained but by the free interchange of opinions, which is only 

 possible when men meet face to face. 



Of the advantage of such conventions to the comparatively 

 inexperienced cultivator, we shall speak with somewhat more 

 of detail. 



In the first place, attendance upon them necessitates the ab 

 solute and undisturbed appropriation of a certain definite time 

 to the acquisition of agricultural knowledge. At home the 

 time would not have been found ; at the convention it is secured. 

 The young farmer who is at the trouble and expense of going 

 abroad for a month for the purpose of study, feels that it is his 

 sole business for the session to learn, as it is on the farm to work. 

 This consideration is an argument of itself almost sufficient for 

 such gatherings. A convention of merest tyros in agriculture, 

 without teachers to instruct or guide them, would of itself be 

 a valuable institution, if only for the definite allotment of time 

 to the business of study. Assembled with such advantages, 

 of instruction the time secured for such an object ensures the 

 most important results. 



A second advantage of such conventions is the influence of 

 the living teacher. This, in the case of persons who are with 

 out the mental discipline furnished by a course of severe study, 

 is an advantage which cannot well be over-estimated. The 

 young man who will gape in the chimney-corner over an agri 

 cultural volume, will listen with intense interest to the very 

 same matter from the lips of an earnest speaker. And the en 

 thusiasm of the teacher will infuse a permanent vitality into the 

 principles he communicates, which will make them living and 

 efficient agencies in the mind of the pupil, instead of mere dead 

 acts accumulated and laid away for a future use which is never 

 realized. 



To illustrate by a particular case, we venture to say that the 

 four lectures on Drainage, given by Judge French, during the 

 recent course, did more to make an impression on the minds 



