210 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



advise the agriculturist. These men were qualified 

 to investigate and to administer ; they have held almost 

 without exception positions of influence, carrying on 

 and extending studies begun under Professor John- 

 son's tuition. But the student desiring to become a 

 trained agriculturist was infrequent. He who wished 

 to equip himself for a business career in agriculture, 

 who looked forward to attacking successfully the prob- 

 lems sure to arise in a new profession, to the creation 

 and development of agricultural resources, was a 

 rarity. 



Yet this professional agriculturist, trained in sci- 

 ence, employed not in teaching but in the business 

 of agriculture, was so felt Professor Johnson the 

 indispensable instrument for the agricultural salvation 

 of our country. After years of experience as a teacher, 

 he came to the conclusion that scientific education of 

 the agriculturist must begin elsewhere than in schools 

 and colleges, that before these could reach the full 

 measure of their efficiency, the agricultural stations 

 must break the ground. That accomplished, from a 

 constituency educated to use and appreciate the sta- 

 tion would come men fitted to study and conduct prac- 

 tical scientific agriculture. Acting upon this mature 

 conviction, he used the influence of his position as 

 professor of agricultural chemistry in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School to further in every possible way the 

 cause of the agricultural station, which was finally 

 established in Connecticut largely through his efforts 

 and in response to his oft-repeated and urgent 

 entreaty an entreaty so well expressed in his widely 

 circulated appeal written in 1874 : 



To say that the farmers of Connecticut and of our entire 



