408 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



devices for entertainment which are a menace to the charac- 

 ter if not the very existence of the agricultural fair. 



To develop with any degree of fulness all the actual and 

 possible relations of education to agriculture, especially in 

 those more advanced lines where study takes immediate 

 hold of the practical industries, were to write a treatise, 

 rather than a brief essay whose modest aim is merely to 

 BUS'S est. 



If the soil of the earth is an exhaustless storehouse of 

 material wealth; if plant growth is the endless process 

 whereby the prime necessities of our physical being — food, 

 clothing and shelter — are supplied ; if its products are the 

 great source of those mighty activities which make society 

 what it is, and effect the commercial solidarity of the race, 

 — no institution or movement whose mission is to teach the 

 art of living can safely neglect to solve their mysteries and 

 inculcate their laws. 



This embraces a wider range than at first appears. The 

 culture of fruit and cereals and roots ; of trees, vines and 

 flowering plants; the rearing of food-producing animals, — 

 are but the rudiments. The staple fibres of textile indus- 

 tries, timl)er and cabinet woods, gums, resins, perfumes and 

 drugs; the constituents of soils and the chemistry of plant 

 foods ; the influence of climate and its variation ; the rela- 

 tion of producer and consumer, of supply and demand, of 

 competition and market, — all claim the best fruit of the 

 most profound research. Here the higher institutions find 

 ample scope for the most advanced thought, and special 

 schools an arena for their highest ambition. 



The miiversity extension movement, which, like a great 

 tidal wave, is passing over the educational world, is full of 

 significance. Starting in England forty years ago, under the 

 auspices of a university i)hilanthropist, as a concession to 

 social ■ discontent, and hence a qriasi necessity, and carried 

 on against prejudice and distrust })y educating the people 

 to its appreciation, it touched our shores but recently, to 

 be welcomed with open-armed hospitality. This welcome 

 signifies that, des[)ite its name, which might retain a flavor 

 of social distinction and therefore of exclusiveness, it is in 

 fact an extension of our popular education, so germane to 



