94 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



and facilities for doing the special work for which he 

 had so laboriously prepared himself. This dissatis- 

 faction led him to look for a position elsewhere; he 

 was seriously considering the possibilities of an agri- 

 cultural school in Pennsylvania, which might give him 

 the field he wanted in conjunction with Mr. Pugh, and 

 also employ the business talents of his brother-in-law, 

 Mr. Easton, who was still hesitating before breaking 

 all family ties in the East and casting in his fortunes 

 with the newly opened Northwest. In this connection 

 Mr. Easton wrote : 



If there is a reasonable probability of doing what you sug- 

 gested with your Philadelphia friend and ray services are 

 wanted at a reasonable living price for the farming and busi- 

 ness department, I shall hold on and look to that as my future 

 business. Of course you have nothing tangible as yet on the 

 subject. ... I see your things in the Country Gentleman. 

 Go ahead, agricultural science is your missionary field and 

 you are responsible to the amount of some talents for its 

 cultivation. You are making some reputation by your posi- 

 tion at Yale College, and still more perhaps by your articles 

 in the papers. This is all right and I am proud of it. I 

 expect, if you live, to see you some one of these days. 



When Mr. Johnson visited Albany in September, 

 he found Mr. Tucker and his other friends in the 

 New York State Agricultural Society still anxious that 

 he should join their working force in that city. This 

 society had been founded in 1832 by J. D. Le Ray de 

 Chaumont; from the first it counted among its mem- 

 bers men who believed in the possibilities opened by 

 science to the advancement of agriculture. When the 

 work of Justus von Liebig began to be known in this 

 country, and it became evident that chemistry was to 



