336 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tion ? Xo. For the honor of the old Bay State and the good 

 of her teeming population, let all friends of agriculture bestir 

 themselves, so that Massachusetts shall bud and blossom as the 

 rose, and yield her increase for man and beast. I am glad that 

 the idea has to so great an extent vanished, that all wc need 

 for a farmer is bone and muscle, a strong physical frame, with- 

 out that motive power which underlies all our action, which 

 plans and carries into execution well directed labor. 



An engine may be built very strong, every part as perfect as 

 the skill of man can make ; a road may be graded, the hills may 

 be brought low, the valleys raised, the rough places made 

 smooth, the track laid and the engine placed upon it. But 

 does it move ? Not until the motive-power is applied, with 

 man's skill and knowledge to direct all its movements. Who 

 attempts to argue that a man can make and manage a steam- 

 engine without being educated for that purpose ? Who attempts 

 to say a man can practice law without a knowledge of law, or a 

 physician medicine, without a knowledge of the diseases flesh 

 is heir to and the remedies to be applied, or our teachers to 

 attempt to give instruction in those branches of science of which 

 they have no knowledge ? From whence is this knowledge 

 derived ? From teachers, from books, from the experience of 

 others, from our own observation ; and then, in the application of 

 those principles to practice, we still gather fresh information, 

 for it is said " we never more than half know anything, until we 

 are able to explain it to others." 



Shall we discard in agriculture what we claim everywhere 

 else ? This, it seems to me, is not a wise policy. Expel the 

 idea that is in the minds of many, that to educate a young man 

 is to give him a distaste for the farm, and unfit him for farm 

 labor. But the opposite, that a theoretical knowledge is essen- 

 tial, and then an application of the principles he has learned to 

 practice, and with a mind educated, he will be continually draw- 

 ing from his own resources and from the researches of others. 

 In this way shall it not be thoroughly demonstrated, that knowl- 

 edge and the use of capital are as essential to the prosperity of 

 agriculture as to any other branch of industry ? 



N. S. Hubbard. 



The report having been read and laid over, the Board pro- 



