20 AGEICULTURE AND RURAL-LIFE DAY. 



THE GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION. 



Several hundred years before Columbus discovered America there 

 were in many parts of Europe great religious institutions known as 

 monasteries, which had in their possession m'any acres of land. In 

 those institutions manual labor was first recognized as a necessary 

 part of an educational system, and the monks were required to cul- 

 tivate the land around the monasteries in which they lived. In 

 their work and methods the monks furnished models for the peasants 

 of Europe and introduced among them better seed and plants. 



Before the first settlement was made in America certain principles 

 of plant growth were published in England, and were recommended 

 to be taught in the schools of that day. But it was not until near 

 the close of the eighteenth century that the attention of practical 

 men began to be directed to the discoveries of science, and hopes 

 began to arise that man would learn something valuable about the 

 vast possibilities of the soil. 



Necessity was driving the nations of Europe to study the possibili- 

 ties of the land because the food supply was often short and famine 

 made frequent appearances. But America was new and possessed 

 such a vast area of fertile land that little attention was paid to the 

 conservation of the fertility of the soil. It took the early colonists 

 several generations to learn that there was any limit to its productive- 

 ness. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other large plant- 

 ers called attention repeatedly to the necessity of studying the soil, 

 Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that an acre well fertilized will 

 produce considerably more than an acre unfertilized. In 1785 the 

 first American agricultural society was established in Philadelphia, 

 and Washington and Franklin were members of it. In the same 

 year a similar society was organized in South Carolina, which pro- 

 posed to establish an experimental farm. These societies . led to 

 others in other States, and agricultural fairs were started. 



However, with all this agitation by the leading men of America 

 there was a fine scorn for "book farming." By the close of the 

 eighteenth century, however, signs appeared here and there of ex- 

 hausted lands along the seaboard, where land was becoming harder 

 and harder to get. 



Columbia College, of New York, followed the example of certain 

 European schools and in 1782 made provision for teaching agricul- 

 ture. In 1823 the first practical school of agriculture was established 

 in Maine. Nine years later Connecticut moved in the same direction. 

 In 1857 Michigan, a new State, took the lead in soil study and pro- 

 vided in her constitution for creating agricultural schools; two 

 years later Maryland and Pennsylvania turned in that direction; 



