AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 29 



fifty miles from here, and heard a man who had been governor 

 of the State, and is now a member of Congress, [Hon. George 

 S. Boutwell,] say that all this matter of agricultural education 

 was mere nonsense. He stated that he had always said that the 

 Agricultural College would be a failure ; it could not succeed, 

 in the nature of things, for as soon as you educated a boy he 

 would leave the farm. Consequently, the conclusion he came 

 to was, that all the education a farmer got he would have to get 

 at the tail of the plough — or words to that effect. I never was 

 so much astonished in my life. I supposed it was some badly 

 reconstructed rebel. I have heard such doctrines down South 

 — that as soon as you educated labor you destroyed it for agri- 

 cultural purposes. The doctrine there has been, " Keep all 

 education away from the laborer ; you can manage him better." 

 I suppose that was the theory of the ex-governor — that you 

 could manage the agricultural population better by denying 

 them education. But from the remarks I have heard this morn- 

 ing, I should judge that education was necessary even for the 

 farmer. Mr. Bull says that a knowledge of chemistry is neces- 

 sary ; that chemistry would tell us what it is best to raise, and 

 all that. But I would not advise any farmer to go home and 

 sell his cattle. I think our most reliable source for manure, 

 (notwithstanding what we may derive from chemical sources,) 

 is found in cattle. I think the experience of every farmer liere 

 will bear mo out in saying, that only in those regions of country 

 where the largest number of cattle have been maintained have 

 they been able to keep up the fertility of their soil. We find 

 that in the great grain-growing sections the wheat crop has fallen 

 off largely, while the product of the dairy has kept pace with 

 the population. All through the State of New York we find 

 that the wheat-producing sections have fallen off in their pro- 

 duction a great many bushels to the acre, while the dairy-pro- 

 ducing sections have constantly increased their product. That 

 State produces one-quarter of all the butter and one-third of all 

 the cheese produced in the United States, but very much less 

 wheat than fifteen years ago. I think these facts are very 

 strong arguments in favor of keeping cattle, and I find that New 

 England farmers have profited by that experience. We find the 

 cows in Massachusetts increasing steadily at the rate of 1,400 a 



