AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 469 



It is one of the primary objects of an agricultural education, to 

 reveal these truths to the tiller of the soil. Without that 

 knowledge he cannot successfully prosecute his calling. That 

 knowledge he can attain. The principles of agricultural science 

 are the combined result of all experience in husbandry, and all 

 deductions from all other sciences upon this subject. Many of 

 those principles are not yet fully developed. Where but in the 

 school, with competent instruction, can the tiller of the soil be- 

 come master of those principles which are known, or be led 

 successfully to explore the arcana of nature in search of the 

 unknown. 



The farmers of Massachusetts have not always shown an 

 alacrity in embracing all professed improvements in the culture 

 of their farms. Many of them, as in every thing else, are but 

 professions, while some are of real intrinsic worth. But the 

 farmer hears of them by accident, or through the questionable 

 source of some interested patentee. He has seen the failure of 

 so many experiments. He knows nothing of the principles of 

 their application, whether they should succeed or fail, he would 

 be alike ignorant of the cause of success or failure, and he, 

 therefore, either foregoes their application altogether, or 

 blindly tries, and as blindly fails, and then turns away in dis- 

 gust from all new notions to the old track his fathers trod 

 before him. 



If, on the other hand, all these professed improvements could 

 be submitted to the test of scientific experiment, upon a farm 

 owned by the State, and connected with an institution for the 

 education of farmers ; if their principles could there be devel- 

 oped and taught by practical demonstration to the sons of the 

 owners of the soil, then what proved worthless would be thrown 

 aside without a useless expenditure of time and money by the 

 practical farmer, and without engendering that disgust of all 

 innovations which is so prone to follow a failure to realize 

 promised results. And whatever time and trial have tested 

 and shown valuable, would be brought home to immediate prac- 

 tical application under the auspices of enlightened, educated 

 mind. The result of experiments thus conducted cannot be 

 doubtful. Theory is thereby reduced to practice, and the rules 

 which abstract science teaches are thus demonstrated andillus- 



