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FARMERS' REGISTER. 



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providence gives us in the midst of the difficult 

 circumslances of life. But their very apprehen- 

 Bion has not been without advantage ; they search 

 and put into practice everything which can, if not 

 prevent entirely, at any rate diminish the evil 

 which they (ear. The food is euch as is found 

 upon the tables of the laborers, who are frugal, 

 orderly, and economical. The labor in the field, 

 although proportioned to the age of the children, 

 requires the exercise of strength and perseverance. 

 The master forbids communication with persons 

 unconnected with the school, only when there is 

 danger without any prospect oi" advantage. It is 

 his endeavor, on the contrary, rather to make tliem 

 acquainted with the society around, in which they 

 nre shortly to live, than to eeclade them from it. 

 He frequently charges the elder boys with selling, 

 purchasing, and going upon commissions of every 

 description; which, in bringing them to con- 

 tact with a great number of persons of different 

 characters and conditions, nmst necessarily make 

 them acquire some experience of things, and of 

 men. In fine, the conviction of the importance, 

 and the difficulty of the ])roblem, causes the direc- 

 tors to often make the thing the object of serious 

 examination, and to neglect nothing which will 

 give the most satisfactory solution po-ssible. When 

 there is a candidate for admission, the committee 

 examine whether he has the physical requisites for 

 his presumed profession. The daily labor is that of 

 ai^riculture ; the size of the farm has been gradu- 

 ally augmented : it is composed at this moment of 

 39| poses, of which 34| are arable, 2^ pasture, 

 parden, and orchard, and 2| vineyard. The chil- 

 dren are made acquainted with all the details of 

 management which can excite their interest, and 

 make of them one day enlightened agriculturists. 

 The product of each of the pieces of ground of 

 which the farm is composed, being valued sepa- 

 rately, it is to the boys themselves that the care of j 

 keeping the accounts ie confided, and to make for 

 each article the balance of expenses and receipts. 

 The result, indicated in numbers, is a lesson tipon 

 the advantages that such and euch a description 

 of cultivation presents under such and such cir- 

 cumstances, of v/hich an experienced master fails 

 not to make them appreciate the influence."* 



These suggest the schools proper for the educa- 

 ting of the children of the laborers, the first point 

 to be considered. The plan of the Carra estab- 

 lishment might be adopted, with a few triflng 

 amendments, which it will be time enough to talk 

 about vv'hen it is likely the plan will be acted on. 

 Without a well educated body of laborers, under 

 the circumstances 1 contemplate, it would be like 

 working with a team of poor horses : the work 

 would be done, but how? There are, or have 

 been, both here and in Ireland, schools for educa- 

 ting laborers ; but from what I can learn, in the 

 absence of authentic accounts, they are, or 

 were, not the most efficient. If they are in exis- 

 tence they should be revised by their philanthro- 

 phic founders, for nothing can be more noble than 

 euch institutions. A " bold peasantry" are, truly, 

 their " country's pride," but how much more the 

 pride of their country should be a bold and well 

 educated " peasantry," if that must be the epi- 

 thet. 



As schools for the bringing up of scientific 



• Duppa. 



farmers, the Swiss ofTer us nothing of moment 

 that we can follow. We must strike out a plan 

 for ourselves. I propose to form, in each country, 

 one or more farms, to be placed under the man- 

 agement of proper persons ; and they should be 

 sufficiently large to admit of operations on a toler- 

 ably extensive scale. I would by no means have 

 mere garden practice. Each farm should admit a 

 determinate humber of sons of fiirmers, but none 

 under twelve or fourteen years of age, as students 

 of agriculture; and the students should be boarded 

 and lodged on the farm. The labors of tfie farm 

 to be performed, of course, by the students, when 

 their .strength was adequate to the task, and it would 

 seldom be otherwise, for I contemplate having 

 them of ages li'om fourteen to twenty. Of the ar- 

 rangements for the necessary accommodation of 

 the students, servants, and professors, I say no- 

 thing : they would suggest themselves; and I 

 am not troubling myself with minidicB. 



The course of education on these farms, or ag- 

 ricultural colleges, should run through — 



1. The art of performing ihe manual operations 

 of agriculture. Too much care could not be be- 

 stowed on this head. On the dexterous and per- 

 fect performance of ploughing, digging, manuring, 

 trenching, sowing, planting, hedging, thinning 

 out, and the thousand and one operations the 

 farmer has to perform, more depends than at first 

 thought appears. 



2. Simple mechanics. A knowledge of the car- 

 penter's art IS of the most essential service to a 

 farmer. Taking the country through, thousands of 

 pounds are annually lost from want of such know- 

 ledge. The carpenter is seldom at hand when 

 he is wanted, and when he is ten or a dozen miles 

 off, as is often the case the odds are that he is 

 never sent for. If it were deemed necessary to 

 go a little into the philosophy of mechanics, Kater 

 and Lardner^s Mechanics, would be amply suffi- 

 cient for a text book. 



3. Land surveying and the art of valuing rents 

 and tillages. These a farmer should be well ac- 

 quainted with ; but very few are. They shoutd 

 be taught by actual practice. There is much dif- 

 ference between theoretical and practical know- 

 ledge. For the first, Crocker'' s Land Surveying 

 would be as good a text book as any, and lor the 

 latter, Bayldon on Valuing Rents and Tillages. 

 As preliminary text books, I should recommend, 

 SmitKs Lessons in jJrithmetic. and his Evoluiion 

 and Involution of Numbers : there are no works 

 in the language like them. The intermediate 

 treatises are so numerous, and of such equal merit, 

 that there is a little choice. 



4. Botany. Systematical and physiological ; 

 the latter to be studied with the utmost attention, 

 l^ext books, Lindley's Introduction toPhysiologi- 

 cal Botany, and Be Candolle Physiologic Vege- 

 tate, translated. 



5. Geology.^— So fiir as relates to the nature and 

 [)osition of rocks and strata, and of the formation 

 of soils. A thorough knowledge of that part of 

 geological science, would frequently be of great 

 service to the scientific farmer. Theoretical geol- 

 gy I should pass over ; not that it is of no impor- 

 tance, but that it is a species of knowledge that 

 bears no relation to agriculture. My object would 

 not be, to make geologists in the sense the term is 

 usually understood. For a text book I should re- 

 commend a translation of the Manuale Geologico 



