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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Sept. 



EDUCATION FOR THE SONS OF FARMERS. 

 BY J. A. KENNICOTT, OF ILLINOIS. 



Eds. Gen. Farmer: — Your ever welcome little 

 paper has shown its cheerful August face to its 

 friends in Northern Illinois; and, as an early settler 

 on the " Holland Purchase," I may perhaps venture 

 to say, that I have read with much pleasure, and 

 more hope, your own and your correspondents' re- 

 marks on the " spirit of the age," and the necessity 

 of association, and a sustained esprit du corps among 

 farmers — and more especially "Agricultural Educa- 

 tion" for the sons of farmers. This has long been 

 a growing, though quiet and unobtrusive hobby with 

 me. I have said little about it, because I much 

 distrusted my abilities, as well as my prejudices, and 

 thought it best to bide the proper time; and that time 

 has not yet arrived in the West. We are now en- 

 gaged in, it is to be hoped^ successful attempts, to 

 systematize Common School Education. 



But in New York the case is different — common 

 schools are approximating a reasonable perfection — 

 and it will be a glad day for me, and a proud one for 

 New York, when I see an Agricultural College, with 

 a large farm attached, and such a man as David 

 Thomas, or Lewis F. Allen, for instance, at the 

 head of it, in the Western part of my native State — 

 which, even I can remember, as almost a wilderness. 

 Such an institution would be worth all the purely 

 literary ones in the State. It would send out prac- 

 tical men — and give tone, and standing, to the 

 profession of Agriculture. 



Colleges of this nature — compared with our pre- 

 sent irregular and uncertain facilities — would be to 

 the farming and mechanical interests, what medical 

 schools are to the profession of medicine and surgery, 

 cotrasted with the old mode of studying with a coun- 

 try doctor. And yet, it may be said, that some of 

 these village bred students have become eminent 

 physicians. True; and so, up to the present day, 

 have merely "book learned farmers" become our 

 best, and most successful agriculturists. But, how 

 many of his blunders has the silent grave covered, 

 in the one instance — and how much useless expen- 

 diture, and how many fields reaped without profit, 

 could the others tell of, in his first attempts to go 

 beyond the usual routine — which a practical educa- 

 tion would have obviated ? 



Your correspondent, "Agricola," is right with re- 

 spect to the spirit of the age. Useless learning will 

 not much longer form a great portion of "a liberal 

 education," in this utilitarian age. Two or three 

 years thrown away, in the study of dead languages, 

 will not be tolerated in the latter half of this nine- 

 teenth century. Life, in our day, is not too long at 

 the best, and many of us, in the most senseless man- 

 ner, are doing much to shorten its natural period — 

 though scientific medicine has, of late years, wonder- 

 fully diminished its liability to accidental termination, 

 and thus aided to swell the current population of our 

 earth. And yet, were we sure of forty years, on an 

 average, can there be any good reason why we should 

 spend a tenth of the flower of our days, in acquiring that 

 which, at the best, is but a barren accomplishment, if 

 not a criminal waste of time, and wear of intellect ? 



Brother Farmer — my worthy and ambitious friend 

 — you who sent your son to college because you 

 could afford it, and wished to do for him, what your 

 father could not do for you — now answer me can- 

 didly, although you are very proud of his learning, 

 has he in reality gained anything useful by his four 



years' expensive application ? Is not this favored 

 son, (doubtless a lad of promise once,) a mere drone ? 

 — a dreamy book-worm ? — or worse, a self-sufficient 

 ass ! — with all his Greek and Latin, and ancient 

 literature, (none of the purest,) and old monkish 

 learned lumber — oppressing and obfuscating the 

 brain, without leaving a trace of useful knowledge, 

 or a single new idea, worth a pinch of snuff. 



I will venture a prediction: In 25 years there 

 will not be ten colleges in the Union requiring the 

 study of the dead languages as a part of a regular 

 course of education. The reign of sanctified error 

 is drawing to a close. This is the age of mind, and 

 the republic of knowledge, in contradistinction to the 

 empire of mere learning — and the sons of farmers 

 know the value of time, and seldom have much to 

 spare. But should they possess a taste for languages, 

 and great facility in acquiring them, they can study 

 French and German, and find their account in it. 

 These languages are as useful now as was the Latin 

 once; and even the Spanish is worth more than 

 Greek, in these golden days. 



Horticulture, though not in name, does now, in 

 reality, form a part of a liberal education; and an 

 English education is incomplete without a knowledge 

 of natural philosophy and chemistry — and a farmer 

 should study geology, mineralogy, botany, entomo- 

 logy, &tc, — and anatomy and physiology, as well as 

 these — provided always that he has time, and taste 

 therefor; and if he has taste, he will find time. — 

 And, what is more, he will find pleasure in learning 

 to know himself, and the nature of things, animate 

 and inanimate, which surround him, and which, for 

 gopd, or for evil, influence the success of his pursuits. 



Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts go hand in 

 hand, and are reciprocally dependant on each other; 

 and commerce ministers to both — bankers and tra- 

 ders are our factors — " professional men," our natu- 

 ral dependants, and our "necessary evils" — politi- 

 cians (generally demagogues,) call themselves our 

 "servants," and act as the arbiters of our destiny — 

 ever an age behind the spirit of the times — and why 

 is this ? and in what are any of these superior to the 

 farmer ? Not in worth — not in usefulness, surely — 

 but in mere learning, and station, which old custom 

 and our folly have, heretofore, accorded them, and 

 pardonable combinations and their " esprit du corps" 

 have enabled them to maintain. 



The new race of producers will remedy all this, 

 and the educated Farmer, or Mechanic, will rank, 

 "first in honor," and first in station, as he has 

 ever been first in usefulness and necessity. J. A. 

 K.— The Grove, III., August, 1849. 



Application of Manures. — The question rela- 

 ting to the application of Manures, appears to be a 

 very simple one. A dead animal left to decay on 

 the surface of the earth, will, as decomposition pro- 

 ceeds, nearly all escape into the atmosphere, in the 

 shape of gases. The same is true of a heap of 

 vegetable matter. Ashes, lime, (in any of its forms,) 

 soda, and all the mineral salts, absorb from the at- 

 mosphere, and in wasting away descend and mingle 

 with the soil. Hence in applying animal or vegetable 

 manures bury them in the earth, (unless in a liquid 

 state,) that on decomposing, the elements may in 

 their ascent, be absorbed by the soil and be food for 

 the plants. In the use of mineral manures, place 

 them on or near the surface, that on decomposing 

 they may descend to the roots of the plants. h. 



