78 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ence has demonstrated that efforts for the improvement of a 

 people are most wisely directed to the mental and moral culture 

 of the young. 



It is therefore obvious that while much benefit may result 

 from public meetings for the discussion of practical questions, 

 and from the publication of agricultural documents, which in 

 the form of books and periodicals are now spread broadcast over 

 the country, yet the real want of the times is thoroughly edu- 

 cated farmers — men who combine exact science with profitable 

 practice. We have workers enough, writers enough, and talkers 

 in excess. Let us have the three in one. Let us have men pre- 

 pared for this profession by years of study, during which they 

 shall not only become familiar with all the most important 

 knowledge pertaining to the subject, but shall acquire, by 

 thorough discipline, that ability for close observation and accu- 

 rate experiment which is indispensable to any considerable prog- 

 ress. This is the needed remedy for that crudeness and super- 

 ficiality and frequent worthlessness of agricultural literature of 

 which we are all the constant victims. 



But just here we are met by the popular notion that much 

 culture is incompatible with manual labor, and that the farmer 

 who sends his son to college for education, will find that as he 

 increases in intelligence he will decrease in industry, pro- 

 fessional zeal and capacity for successful farm management. 



Now, to assert that a young man cannot be immensely 

 strengthened and benefited by special, scientific preparation to 

 practise agriculture, is to admit that though so loudly praised 

 as the first, last and noblest occupation of the race, it is a-eally 

 degrading in its nature, and designed, in the organization of 

 society, only for those poor, stupid, ignorant or unfortunate 

 persons who are unable to secure a livelihood in any other 

 way — a doctrine which the Massachusetts farmers are hardly 

 ready to accept. 



But perhaps the inquiry may arise, Why the graduates of our 

 older colleges are not more commonly found engaged in agri- 

 culture, if it be so excellent a business and one so greatly advan- 

 taged by education ? The explanation is obvious and most 

 satisfactory. 



In the first place, the course of study is not at all adapted to 

 qualify a man for farming. Seven years of the best of life are 



