AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 



The idea of educational institutions especially devoted 

 to agriculture and the industrial arts, is of comparatively 

 modern origin. Among ancient authors we find several 

 very respectable attempts to lay down rules for agricultural 

 practice, but the writers being wholly ignorant of science, 

 were unable to give the rationale of the most simple facts 

 in agriculture; and hence agricultural schools for instruc- 

 tion in agricultural principles were out of the question. 



In modern times the interest manifested in agricultural 

 education has grown with the development of modern 

 science. In the first half of the eighteenth century a 

 number of works upon agriculture appeared, in which the 

 few faint glimpses of experimental science, at that time 

 known, were used to illuminate agricultural practice. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 



As early as 1730, Wallerius was engaged in chemico- 

 agricultural investigations in Sweden, while Jethro Tull 

 was developing his system of practical farming in England; 

 and in 17G1, the former published a work (Agriculture 

 Fundamenta Chemica) in which he sought to develop a 

 system of manuring founded on the examination of the 

 ashes of plants. Quesnay, in 1747, founded the Physio- 

 cratic School in France; the principal object of which was 

 the dissemination of agricultural ideas. A little later, ag- 

 ricultural societies were founded in Switzerland, Saxony, 

 and Hanover; and as the interest in the dissemination of 

 agriculture increased, agricultural professorships were esta- 



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