274 



Agricultural Colleges. 



Vol. XL 



and decay of the early vegetables, and the 

 result will be disastrous; unless intelligence 

 spread, the cause become well known, and 

 the proper remedy applied. 



Chemico. 



October, 1846. 



Agricultural Colleges. 



The late English papers give us an ac- 

 count of an Institution now on foot there 

 which we hope soon to see copied among us 

 by some State endowments. 



" Gloucestershire. — The Cirencester 

 Agricultural College is now open for the 

 reception of students, of whom, when the 

 additional wing now erecting is completed, 

 it will be capable of accommodating two 

 hundred. It is a spacious and imposing 

 structure, of the ornamented Elizabethan 

 style, the principal front, which is to the 

 south, showing a facade of one hundred and 

 ninety feet by fifty feet in height, the centre 

 relieved by a well proportioned tower, sur 

 mounted at the north-west angle by an oc- 

 tangular turret, the whole rising ninety-three 

 feet from the lawn. A theatre for lectures 

 is in project, and it is in contemplation to 

 add a chapel. 'A more pleasant or healthy 

 site,' says the Will Standard, 'could hardly 

 have been chosen. It is situated on an ele- 

 vated part of the farm, about a mile and a 

 half from the town of Cirencester, com- 

 manding from the south an extensive pros 

 pect over North Wiltshire; while the rear 

 of the building is near adjoining the park, 

 and sheltered by the woods of Earl Bathurst. 

 The objects of the Institution are to provide 

 what has ever been a desideratum — scien- 

 tific instruction in all that pertains to agri- 

 culture, and every subject treated in such a 

 manner and to such an extent as its bearing 

 upon agriculture demands; while every de- 

 scription of trial and experiment will be 

 made, so as not to risk general results, it 

 being the determination of the council that 

 the system pursued on the farm shall be the 

 one most profitable, and such as the pupils 

 may adopt with confidence in their future 

 occupations. Students are only admissible 

 upon the nomination of a proprietor, or do- 

 nor of j£30. From fourteen to eighteen is 

 the age at which they will be eligible to 

 enter; nor will they be allowed to remain 

 but six months after their twentieth birth- 

 day. The annual payment of each student 

 is j£30, with such charges as the council may 

 fix for the library, museum, &c. Non-resi- 

 dent students of any age will be allowed, 

 on the recommendation of a proprietor, to 

 attend the lectures, and avail themselves of 

 the practical instruction, upon the same an- 



nual payment of j£30. While attending at 

 the college, or on the farm, they will be 

 amenable to the college authorities for their 

 conduct, on pain of forfeiting the fee. The 

 management of the college is committed to 

 the principal, who is responsible to the coun- 

 cil for the orderly conduct of the students, 

 and for the general well being of every de- 

 partment. A regular attendance of the 

 daily prayers of the Church of England, 

 and at the parish church on Sundays, is re- 

 quired ; but the sons of dissenters may re- 

 spectively attend such places of worship as 

 their parents shall, by letter to the principal, 

 request." 



Among ourselves large sums are, in nearly 

 all the States, expended in agricultural so- 

 cieties, and by some, experimental farms 

 have been founded. 



As the first imperfect means of awaken- 

 ing popular attention to improvements in 

 cultivation, agricultural societies have no 

 doubt done much. But they stimulate ra- 

 ther than instruct; for they seldom embrace 

 a single member really skilled in cultivation 

 as an art, and they do not teach, any further 

 than by a few days' meeting in the year, 

 and some practical examples of improved 

 methods. But, besides, husbandry is fast 

 becoming a science of no little extent and 

 complexity; so that not grown men but boys 

 must be the pupils, and a regular agricultu- 

 ral education given. 



Public experimental farms have, we be- 

 lieve, been entire failures in every instar.ce, 

 except as jobs for individuals, or places 

 where mere visionaries have been permit- 

 ted to expose their incapacity at the public 

 expense. Good, we fancy, they have done 

 none. Indeed, they are a mere mistake, w^e 

 suppose, unless as an appendage to the agri- 

 cultural college ; attached to which they 

 serve as the chemical laboratory does to lec- 

 tures on that science, or as the dissecting 

 room to a course of anatomy and surgery. 

 What lectures and demonstrations would be, 

 each without the other, in these latter cases, 

 an experimental farm is without a college, 

 and a college without an experimental farm. 



Next above these several means, as here- 

 tofore used among us, we must place agri- 

 cultural journals; and these alone have no 

 doubt done more to spread among us im- 

 provements in rural economy than all other 

 things together. They have been to us the 

 great creators of an art, upon the excellence 

 of which depends public happiness — we might 

 add, public morals — more than upon all other 

 things whatever. But we must not be mis- 

 understood by that narrow-minded sect who 

 call themselves philosophers and free-traders: 



