42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



them. He was very strenuous against connecting an agricul- 

 tural school witli any existing college. The expenses of living 

 at any of the large established universities would be an objec- 

 tion, in the minds of farmers, to sending their sons there. 



Prof. Johnson said he was not sure of the interest felt in 

 agricultural education. His own lectures on agricultural 

 chemistry were but poorly attended. The courses of lectures 

 delivered in New Haven, some years ago, were somewhat of a 

 failure, and had not been repeated. A college whose professors 

 did not come from the practical walks of farming must fail. 

 Theory witliout practice is useless. Hence the folly of the 

 doctrine that an analysis of the soil would reveal all its 

 qualities. We need schools to which farms are attached, in 

 order to make tliera useful. 



Dr. Loring said that knowledge is always sought by all who 

 would make a practical application of it. He had no fear that 

 a school in which practical farming was taught would ever 

 languish for want of students. He had no fear of the establish- 

 ment of a class by connecting the school with a college. Let 

 the education be of the highest order, and all rivalries and 

 jealousies and castes would cease. He urged again the plan 

 by which the best talent of a university could be added to 

 practical operations, as the best foundation of a school of 

 agriculture. 



The meeting of the second day was organized by the choice 

 of Elias Grout, delegate from the Middlesex South Society, as 

 President. The topic of discussion for the morning was the 



SOILS AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Dr. Hartwell presented some important vIqws with regard to 

 tlie effects of tillage upon various kinds of soil, and referred to 

 the importance of so introducing manure into the soil as to 

 secure for it the influence of the air for the work of decomposi- 

 tion. He spoke of the effects of drainage, and illustrated by 

 allusion to a piece of land which he had made of great fertihty, 

 by grading upon a foundation of stones. Mr. Sewall spoke of 

 the results of mulching on sward land in raising potatoes, and 

 related his own experience, that while mulching was very useful 

 on the kind of land referred to, it was not so useful on old 



