AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA. 557 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA 



The following correspondence is published to show the feeling which is begin- 

 ning to pervade the whole country on the subject of a better and more appropriate 

 education for all who are to follow the cultivation of the soil for a livelihood : and 

 assuredly when we refer to the numbers employed in it, and the value of the 

 products of agricultural industry, so much exceeding all other occupations com- 

 bined, there can be no hesitation in admitting the right of the landed interest to 

 its proportionate share of the public means for giving knowledge and eflicacy to 

 that most important pursuit. 



John S. Skinner. Esq. : Winchester, May 5, 1847. 



Sir : The umlersigned have heiinl with pleasure that you have some idea of traveling 

 through the V^alley of Virginia during the approaching summer. Under this expectation 

 they have been appointed by the Winchester Lyceum a Committee respectfully to solicit, 

 while you arc performing this tour, that you will spend a few days in Winchoslor, and deliver 

 Buch lectures as you may deem best calculated to advance the great agricultural objects to 

 which you liave devoted so much of your time and mind. 



The undersigned are of the opinion that no portion of Virginia, at least, presents a finer 

 field fm- testing the useftdness of agricultural schools, eidier for the Nonnal or general pur- 



{)oses of education, than this neighborhood ; and they feel satisfied that you are disposed to 

 end the weight of your name and gi-eat experience in giving an imj)ulse to sudi under- 

 takings, as well as to any mea-sures calculated to develop the great fiu-ming resources of our 

 Valley. 



The undersigned take pleasure in advising you that tlie Winchester and Potomac Railroad. 

 Company tenders to you, on the occasion referred to, the privilege of traveling over their 

 roiul wdthout charge ; and we assure you that no expense need be incun-ed by you during 

 your visit here, nor your journey up the Valley, from which all our citizens must anticipate 

 profit as well as pleasure. 



It is likely that toward the end of June or the first week of July might suit your arrange- 

 ments as the best time to be with us, as it certiiuly would be the most convenient to our 

 formers, whose harvests, at a later period, might forbid tliem ihe pleasure of making your 

 acquaintance and listening to your views of the dignity and importance of a pursuit which 

 mainly engages the capital and entei-prise of the Valley. 

 We are, respectfully, yoms, &c. 



JOHN BRUCK, D. W. BARTON, 

 W. Y. HOOKER, ROBT. Y. CONRAD, 

 E. T. SMITH. 



Gentlemen : I have duly received your flattering invitation on behalf of the Lyceum, to 

 spend a few days in Winchester en route through the vaUey of Virginia. Without feeling 

 that I can yet positively engage to do so, I must beg you to make my grateful acknowledg- 

 ments to those whom you represent. Twenty-eight years ago, then in infimi health, I 

 traveled through that region on horseback, noting for publication in the American Farmer, 

 what seemed most worthy of regard, in conection with ils Agriculture ; and now, after tha 

 lapse of BO many years, it could not fail to be both interesting and instructive to survey 

 it in the same connection •, compai-ing its condition at that and at this time, and making 

 such reflections on its advancement or decline as incpaiiy and observation might suggest. 



I sluiU never forget the agreeable impression then made by the view of the beautiful farm- 

 ing countiy between Harpei-'s Feriy and Winchester, including a detour through Charleston. 

 Bearing in mind what has been done in other countries, I have no hesitation in saying that by a 

 reasonably abundant and skillful application of capital and labor, the whole valley of Shen- 

 andoah ought, at this day, to be averaging forty bushels of wheat to the acre ; for if we 



have m our country a distiict of laud peculiai'ly adapted to the growth of the two great sta- 

 ll 127) 



