INTRODUCTION. 



a tendency to raise and improve the intellectual, the moral 

 and the social condition of the people, has ever been their 

 cherished policy. Yet up to this time, no institution expressly 

 designed for the professional education of farmers, has ever 

 been established in this country. That far-seeing wisdom, 

 which characterises the consummate statesman, which re- 

 gards the future equally with the present and past, has halted 

 upon the threshhold of the great temple of agricultural 

 science, whose ample and enduring foundations have been 

 commenced by the united efforts of the men of genius 

 throughout both hemispheres. To aid with every means in 

 their power in laying these foundations broad and deep, to 

 elevate its superstructure, to rear its mighty columns, and 

 adorn its graceful capitals, would seem, most properly to 

 come entirely within the province of the representatives of 

 intelligent freemen, the great business of whose lives is the 

 practice of agriculture. 



In addition to continuing, and making more general and 

 comprehensive the encouragement for other objects heretofore 

 considered ; it is the duty of each of the larger States of the 

 Union, liberally to endow and organise an Agricultural Col- 

 lege, and insure its successful operation within its jurisdiction. 

 Connected with them, should be example and experimental 

 farms, where the suggestions of science should be amply 

 tested and carried out before submitting them to the public. 

 The most competent men at home and abroad should be 

 invited to fill a professional chair; and if money would tempt 

 a Liebig, a Boussingault, a Johnston, or a Playfair, to leave 

 the investigations of European soils and products, and devote 

 all their mind and energies to the development of American 

 Husbandry, it should be freely given. 



These institutions should be schools for the teachers equally 

 with the taught ; and their liberally appointed laboratories 

 and collections, should contain every available means for the 

 discovery of what is yet hidden, as well as for the further 

 development of what is already partially known. Minor 



