

DEVOTED TO AGRICULTUB.E AND ITS KIKDRBD ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, FEimUARY, 1856. 



NO. 2. 



JOEL NOURSE, Proprietor, 

 Office.. ..QuiNCT Hall. 



SIMON BROWN, EDITOR. 



FRED'K HOLBROOK, ) Associate 

 HENRY F. FRENCH, 5 Editors. 



-J 



HOW TO BECOME A TEUE FARMER. 



iOUTUNATELY for the 

 cultivator of the 

 soil, the demands of 

 the winter months 

 are less exacting 

 upon him, than 

 those of other portions 

 of the year. He has 

 the long evening, and, 

 if disposed, can give a 

 portion of the day-time 

 to stud) and reading, without 

 detriment to his affairs. So, 

 while thib season of rest and 

 I)ri\ilege is passing, we gladly 

 pie=;ent the topic of the title 

 above, and ask for it the can- 

 did attention of all. 

 The whole subject of educa- 

 tion is one that, perhaps, can not be 

 thoroughly discussed, except by one 

 who ha.-! devoted his years of manhood 

 and maturity to the task of instruction. It requires 

 a closeness and comprehensiveness, only to be 

 gained liy years of labor and experience. Like a 

 question in law, or theology, or politics, it is one on 

 which every head may have an opinion, and every 

 tongue its say. Tlie education of the farmer is not 

 so comprehensive as the general subject of educa- 

 tion; bat it is no lc?s difficult and delicate, and is 

 by no means a business to bo planned and accom- 

 pli.shed without much and considerate reflection. 



Education consists of two parts, or departments; 

 the education of the boy, which is rudimentarv on- 

 ly, and goes to the laying of a foundation for the 

 superstructure afterwards to be raised upon it. 

 This is the object of school education. The other 

 department of education is that of the man, which 

 consists in the development, expansion and appli- 

 cation of the rudiments. This is effected, first, by 

 a more intimate research into the body of know- 

 ledge, of which those rudiments were little more 



^ 



than the shadow ; and, second, by experience and 

 practice in those matters, to which the rudiments 

 apply, and of which they are the index. It is this 

 last department which makes the superstructure, 

 completes the edifice of education. It is this which 

 forms a professional education, which mere rudi- 

 mentary knowledge is wholly inadequate to do. It 

 is this, consequently, which is necessary to make a 

 scientific farmer. Rudiments will not do it. After 

 passing fifteen years in preparatory and professional 

 studies, from the earliest school lessons to the close 

 of the legal course, half of which is given to college 

 and professional studies, the young lawyer has done 

 little more than lay a foundation for his know- 

 ledge of the science of jurisprudence. It is the ju- 

 dicial learning of the cases developed in practice 

 that must give completeness to the fabric. 



From the above view, imperfectly expressed, the 

 inference would seem to be conclusive that the 

 young farmer is not to receive his professional edu- 

 cation, as some speakers and writers have imagined, 

 in the common schools. There is another consid- 

 eration which presents an objection equally formi- 

 dable against this plan of education. At the age 

 when the boy is at school, his mind is not sufficient- 

 ly mature even to comprehend, much less to ap- 

 preciate and digest, the principles of the vegetable 

 physiology, not so easily seized and appropriated 

 by the mental faculties as those of the animal phy- 

 siology, from the less obvious operations of the de- 

 licate functions of the vegetable kingdom. Neither, 

 if the mind were mature enough, could it, as a first 

 exercise, receive this knowledge, without a well- 

 laid foundation in other parts of knowledge, which 

 it is the object of a common-school education to im- 

 part. It is manifest, if the above idea is correct, 

 that the education of a farmer cannot be obtained at 

 a common school, any more than that of a lawyer or 

 physician ; — and it is equally plain that a good 

 common-school education is indispensable to him, as 

 preliminary to his professional education. It might 

 be added, that the whole time which a farmer's soi 

 usually passes at scliool, would not be sufficient for 



