172 



NEW b:NGLAND FARMER. 



mits a man without stooping; and the inner diam- 

 eter averages eleven feet four inches. Mr. Gel- 

 wicks and twenty scholars, from 8 to 17 )'ears old, 

 stood in a circle of one deep on the extreme of the 

 circle of the cavity, and an additional numher of 

 from fifteen to twenty might have stood within." 



For the New Enslnnd Farmer. 

 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



Mr. Editor: — What henefit may be derived 

 from agricultural colleges in Massachusetts re- 

 mains to be tested by experiment. The student of 

 agricultural books, without practice, can no more 

 become a farmer than the carpenter could a good 

 workman by reading books of architecture. The 

 tendency of a protracted course of study at any col- 

 lege or public school is not favorable to habits of 

 industry, especially to create an appetite for prac- 

 tical labor, however enthusiastic the student may 

 be in theoretic notions. A lad or young man, 

 even if he has been accustomed to labor, retires 

 from it and enters a school or an academy; he soon 

 becomes debilitated, and loses that firmness and 

 vigor of muscle which he retained while he contin- 

 ued to labor, and after a while, as langor and 

 debility increases, by a sedentary life, a dislike, 

 then a dread, and at length in some cases an ab- 

 horrence of labor takes place in the pupil, whose 

 mind is often as much enfeebled as his corporeal 

 part. This I know by experience. 



There are other considerations which would ren- 

 der the utility of agricultural schools question- 

 able; the pupil forms new acquaintances, he im- 

 bibes new ideas, and is exalted in the scale of be- 

 ing, in his own estimation, and ascends to a higher 

 grade, and if hegainsknowledge of good, he is full 

 apt to contract habits and visionary notions and the- 

 ories from his associates, which would not hive a 

 tendency to make him an industrious farmer. The 

 boy that is educated to fill a professor's station, 

 will commence life with high expectations, and the 

 idea of higii life will take possession of his mind, 

 without any adequate means of supporting himself 

 in his imaginary self-conceived important standing, 

 and he would be as liable to make a"compromiss" 

 with his creditors as the merchant himself. 



How a poor graduate i'rom an agricultural col- 

 lege can sustain himself without labor would be a 

 puzzle to all practical farmers. There are but very 

 few farmers but what would prefer to be their own 

 professors, instead of paying a salary equal to sup- 

 porting one of these graduated scientific students. 

 A better plan would proi)ably be to settle him down 

 a dead set upon the parish. The public is now 

 burdened with hosts of unnecessary professional 

 men, ofiice holders, office seekers, mountebanks 

 and would-be somebodies, which are like the horse- 

 leech, never satisfied, but cry more money, moi-e 

 money, and are actually squandering the hard earn- 

 ings of the industrious portion of the conmiunity 

 in extravagances, under the pretext that their ser- 

 vices a\'e indispensable to the public good. 



How long the community are doomed to suflfer 

 the impositions of these supernumeraries, and have 

 their little pittances extracted from their pockets 

 by unprincipled pretenders which are flooding the 

 country and committing indiscriminate depredations 

 \\\uin the credulous, unsusuectinff multitude, is be- 

 youil ilie knowledge of liie present generation to 

 proaaoslicaie. 



I think a school endowed with professors for the 

 detection of impostors would be quite as much to 

 the purpose, and as conducive to the public good, 

 as a college to instruct boys to hoe corn and weed 

 onions. 



The process to go through to become a good 

 practical farmer requires time, accurate observa- 

 tion, and habitual labor from day to day, till love 

 of industry becomes second nature. After a boy 

 has been well instructed in the several branches 

 taught in our excellent district schools, I know of 

 no better course lie can pursue to extend his knowl- 

 edge of farming than reading the agricultural pa- 

 pers of the day, filled with the productions of able 

 and enligiitened editors, and communicationsof prac- 

 tical and observing correspondents. The expense 

 would be but a trifle when compared to a protract- 

 ed, debilitating, dissipating course of study at a 

 school whose professors mig-ht be more ignorant 

 of practical farming than the pupils themselves. 

 No ambitious young man desirous of information, 

 as every farmer ought to be, will spend his leisure 

 hours moping about or loafing at grog-shops, when 

 he can be stormg his mind with useful knowledge 

 which he can derive from such a source. If a far- 

 mer wishes to have his soil analyzed, it would be 

 abundantly cheaper to employ a practical chemist 

 to do it than fit himself out with the necessary ap- 

 paratus, if he were competent to perform it himself. 



All New England farmers know that the income 

 of their farms is not adequate to paying the price 

 of labor, and supporting a superintendent, educated 

 at an agricultural college, from the sale of his crops; 

 this may be done in Europe, where the laborer 

 does not draw wages enough to pay his board in 

 America. The superintendent here, whether he is 

 proprietor educated at an agricultural college or 

 otherwise, has got to exercise his muscles like a 

 man instead of dictating a group of half-starved 

 peasants. I am among the last to discountenance 

 any institution fortbe dissemination of useful knowl- 

 edge, but to suffer a burdensome tax to be laid on 

 the people of this commonwealth upon a project 

 which at best looks more like multiplying a new 

 liorde of professors to leech the farmers than ren- 

 der them any permanent benefit, seems an act desti- 

 tute of that wisdom which the old Bay State has 

 been renowned for in past time. 



Wilmington, May, 1851. Silas Brown. 



Remarks. — For some years past we have oc- 

 casionally received communications from Dr. Brown 

 that have been marked with solid sense and accurate 

 observation, therefore we give him a hearing, though 

 we do not endorse all his views, and though he is 

 very severe in some respects. 



The article contains important truths, which the 

 advocates of agricultural colleges in their zeal for 

 a splendid establishment, (and we might say ex- 

 pensive one too,) seem to have over-looked. 



At the late Agricultural Convention, where this 

 subject was discussed, the utility of agricultural 

 papers was not mentioned, if we remember; and 

 the speakers, composed of delegates from the sev- 

 eral agricultural societies, claimed, generally, that 

 what little improvement had been made was ac- 

 complished through the infiuence of those associa- 

 tions. 



