18 Transactions of the State Jigricultural Society. [July, 



ment and discoveries, which, beginning as it were at a point, will 

 extend outwards like the radii of a circle. 



" The school and the farm become by this plan mutual aids. 

 The principles are acquired in the school, and the scholar be- 

 comes ambitious to test them in the field; from which it would 

 follow, that the whole state, with its different soils and climate, 

 becomes one great experimental farm, every intelligent farmer an 

 intelligent experimentalist, eveiy farm a model farm, and ever}' 

 farmers' son a teacher or at least an earnest learner. Such a 

 state of things become in themselves creative; not merely sus- 

 taining such as would advance the outpost of our knowledge step 

 by step into the present uncertain and unknown. The collision 

 of minds, when put in working order invariably results in pro- 

 gress; possibly it would result in an overthrow of piesent doc- 

 trines; still it would be progress, and this is what we wish to ef- 

 fect, when the aid of the state is given for the promotion of a 

 science, not merely to give a living to a few, but to give an im- 

 pulse to the progress of knowledge in the many, and that a wide 

 dissemination of truth be promoted; and it is for this reason that 

 we propose rather the planting of many standards of education 

 than a few, that many may be elevated and enlightened, rather 

 than a single band whose influence would be confined to a limit- 

 ed sphere." 



We propose then to encourage the study of agriculture. By 

 the plans briefiy detailed in the foregoing extracts, it ap- 

 pears that the committee hope to secure a wider and more speedy 

 dissemination of the principles and practices of a productive ag- 

 ricidture, than by the slower and more limited process which 

 must be incident to a single institution. The only question is, 

 will the academies take hold of the subject with sufficient enthu- 

 siasm to secure the end contemplated by the committee. That 

 there are many institutions already incorporated, which can en- 

 orage in teaching agricultural chemistry, and in the institutions of 

 experiments, there can be no doubt. It may be that the plan of 

 the institution now followed, will have to be somewhat modified, 

 is highly probable. The academies of New- York are of a high 

 order, and many of the gentlemen who stand at their head, are 

 competent to direct the principles of an agricultural education, 

 as we can find in any other station. Ability is not wanting, and 

 the institutions are already endowed and partly supplied with ap- 

 paratus; and being located in fine agricultural regions, they seem 

 to hold out the prospect of becoming highly important auxilia- 

 ries in the cause of scientific agriculture. The committee in 

 concluding their report, remark: 



" It may be said that the academies are not supplied w^th 

 teachers capable to instruct in the departments proposed. But it 



