1847.] Transactions of the State Agricultural Society. 19 



is believed that the present teachers, finding what the sentiment 

 is, in regard to this matter, will proceed to qualify themselves for 

 the additional department. Interest will direct this course, for al- 

 ready the study of agriculture has been introduced into some of 

 our best academies, and hence, others must follow the lead, if they 

 would sustain themselves. This plan too, if favored, can scarce- 

 ly fail to excite the honorable ambition of excelling, or of rival- 

 ing neighboring institutions in excellence; a sentiment which 

 might well be encouraged by an award of medals, either by the 

 State or county societies, in which such institution happened to 

 be located. 



" We look upon agriculture, as the most important interest to 

 the people of the state, and regard every movement with plea- 

 sure, which is calculated to advance its interest; but we consider 

 that to be educated a farmer, means something more than the 

 mere ability to hoe corn, or to breed, buy and sell cattle. We 

 hope the day is not far distant, when an uneducated farmer will 

 be as rare a person as an uneducated lawyer, physician or minis- 

 ter. We mean, too, by an education something more than a 

 knowledge of the mere routine of the farm, and farming opera- 

 tions; we mean by the term, a mental training, by which the 

 man who works amid the complicated arrangements of the subtle 

 and refined agencies of nature, will be able to understand those 

 arrangements and give direction to the laws which control them." 

 It may ])e said the committee by no means assume an attitude 

 of hostility to the project brought forward by the American In- 

 stitute. With them it was a question of ability on the part of 

 the state and of time. It appeared to them, that like the ordi- 

 nary means which are designed to give a common school echica- 

 tion to every child in the land, so ought every farmers' son be 

 placed within the reach of an education that should fit him to 

 fulfil its duties in a better manner, and more understandingly than 

 they are at the present prepared and understood by the mass of 

 farmers in the land; and though that high state of cultivation 

 might not be attained, still the many who would thus be benefit- 

 ted, would over balance in its power and influence, the few who 

 might and would be educated at a single and well endowed insti- 

 tution. This comports with the genius of our institutions. In 

 a word, shall we educate a few young men for a particular ser- 

 vice and leave the mass in comparative ignorance? Or shall we 

 educate even many in order to fit them, as in England and Ire- 

 land, to superintend for their lords the cultivation of large estates? 

 The differences between the situation of laborers in New-York 

 and England is so great, that the plan and objects of education 

 must essentially differ. We proceed now to speak of an Essay 

 by Dr. D. P. Gardner, on special manures. 



