470 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



trated. No fanciful projects of farmers in buckram, no imprac- 

 ticable plans of kid-gloved gentlemen would tlien ever vex and 

 disgust farmers in frocks. 



It is in the light of such an institution, erected and liberally 

 endowed by the State, with the aid of private benefactions, for 

 they should go hand in hand, that the farmer, awakened from 

 the pacified sleep, in which he and his neighbors and their 

 fathers before them have rested, would walk and store his mind 

 with the rich fruits of the experience of all times and ages, 

 and with the lessons which all science would teach. It is here 

 he would trace eifect back to cause, sift out error, detect the 

 false from the true, and arm himself in full panoply of experi- 

 ence and skill against the most inveterate prejudice and unyield- 

 ing obstacles that ever beset the path of the farmer. 



At such an institution, if properly endowed, there would be 

 found specimens of all the different kinds of soil which prevail 

 in Massachusetts. And the student of agriculture could there 

 submit his own farm to the crucible of science, and study its 

 qualities in the laboratory or the lecture-room, analyzing it by 

 the help of chemical agents and experimenting on it by the 

 application of those properties found deficient, or neutralizing 

 those which exist to excess. In fine, spreading out his own 

 acres like a book before him, and studying them as a difiicult 

 problem, of which experimental knowledge and scientific deduc- 

 tion furnish the solution. Let the young man destined to the 

 hitherto neglected, but honorable calling, of the tiller of the 

 soil, be educated for his, as men are educated for the other 

 professions; his mind schooled and disciplined, let him start 

 in the world with the help of other men's experience and study, 

 just as a man would commence the practice of law, or of the 

 medical profession, and success surely awaits industry and 

 enterprise. 



It is to this end that I urge here the importance of the 

 establishment of a State institution for instruction in agricul- 

 ture. It should be the property of the State, for the fruits of 

 its success would be the enhancement of the wealth, the eleva- 

 tion and independence of the yeomanry, the improvement of 

 the social and moral condition of the whole people of the 

 Commonwealth. No private liberality could open such an 



