A NATIONAL ACADEMY. 393 



nature, they can occupy only this, what remains to be clone 

 that the whole of agriculture may have some representation in 

 ororanizations amono- us ? 



In these societies, and outside of them, in the State, I 

 believe there exists the material that may l)e brought together 

 in an association that shall form a nucleus for one coexten- 

 sive with the country, having in it the best intellects the 

 countrv affords, and willing to engage them with as-ricult- 

 lire ; the society, to concern itself exclusively with classi- 

 fying and augmenting agricultural knowledge. This will not 

 be a society in which large numbers will take a personal 

 interest ; it will not have popular features ; but it may do 

 some good work, nevertheless, that every farmer shall share 

 the benefit of. 



Every comprehensive branch of human inquiry, at the period 

 of progression from a low to a higher position, the measure of 

 our knowledge being the measure of position, has been in need 

 of, and has generally received, the stimulus that inheres in 

 associated effort. 



We must regard agriculture as being a very old pursuit, 

 and a very new study. iVgriculture in likely soon to be re- 

 garded as worthy, and claiming the recognition, of minds of 

 elevated tendencies, schooled in the methods of exact thinkers. 

 Such are even now directing their attention to this field of 

 research. The institution of national colleges devoted to agri- 

 culture, is an expression of the realized flict, — namely, the 

 dependence of great agricultural results upon intellectual 

 processes, as also the recognition of agriculture as a tit study 

 for the most educated minds. It has hitherto been left largely 

 in the care of so-called self-educated and practical men. 



The importance of connecting the several centres of agri- 

 cultural intellectual inquiry, and bringing into relation indi- 

 viduals engaged in researches directed to one general object, 

 will appear, if we suppose that, at the twenty or thirty agri- 

 cultural colleges, some light is thro\vn upon abstruse prob- 

 lems in agriculture, and then consider by what means the 

 world is to be informed of the results of isolated investigators. 

 If in natural history studies one observes something new, 

 there is opportunity at hand of record and preservation of 

 the same in transactions of some society that has currency 

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