46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



having any proper sense of the dignity of his own calling, feels 

 the necessity for the existence, somewhere, of a fountain to 

 which he may resort, and to which his children may be sent, 

 for instruction, for books, for machinery, for all the appliances 

 and means of the laboratory ; and unless some such thing 

 exist, somewhere in the community, he knows that his own art, 

 his own science, even in its application to the practical affairs 

 of life, must run down. 



Now, it seems to me, that the time has come when the agri- 

 culturists of a State as full of all the resources of learning as 

 Massachusetts is, as full of wealth, as full of intelligent, scientific, 

 and practical farmers as Massachusetts is, with so high an ideal 

 standard as the people of Massachusetts possess of all sorts of 

 excellence in theoretical and practical affairs both, — I think the 

 time has come when the agriculturists of Massachusetts have a 

 right themselves to be represented, and their posterity hereafter 

 to be benefited, by an institution which shall be to agriculture, 

 regarded as an applied science, or as one of the means of the 

 application of science (for that would be truer,) what the higher 

 institutions of science and learning are to the learned profes- 

 sions, more specifically so called. Everybody knows, who has 

 observed the matter at all, how far farming, even in the best 

 communities, lags behind almost all the other arts and profes- 

 sions of our refined civilization. Farmers themselves have a 

 great tendency to regard their calling not in any sense as a 

 profession, but only as a trade, and to regard it as one to be 

 learned, not scientifically, but empirically. Now, that is the 

 greatest and most utter nonsense in the world ; for the wealth, 

 comfort, refinement, and civilization which mankind enjoys rest 

 at last iipon that solid basis of the land ; and they are all sup- 

 ported and nurtured (not merely human life, but all its arts 

 and all its refinements,) at the last, from the cultivated soil ; and 

 just in proportion as you can elevate agriculture itself, will you 

 finally elevate, I think, the people of any country. But agri- 

 culture is not to be elevated in the way you lift a rock, by 

 prying it mechanically ; it must be elevated just as the human 

 soul itself aspires and soars towards heaven — by the inspiration 

 of light and immortal truth ; by the inspiration of that truth 

 which enlightens and lifts up the individual mind and soul and 

 permeates and so lifts up the whole community. 



