MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 429 



of the school, a scientific man, conducted us out to the piggery ; 

 and there we met the young men connected with the school, 

 evidently from wealthy families, all of them, including the 

 director himself, with their frocks on. But I noticed that all 

 the young men were engaged in some business about the farm. 

 Each one had his duty to perform. One was to attend to such 

 a thing, and another to such a thing. There was one young 

 man who had a broom and a pail of water, and who was clean- 

 ing an ox's leg in a stable. The director whispered to us that 

 that young man was the son of a wealthy banker. 



The truth is, the farm is considered an indispensable adjunct 

 to the school. Unless those who have the management of it, 

 show better crops than others in the neighborhood, the govern- 

 ment withdraws its patronage. And they do show better crops. 

 I never saw better ones than those at Glasnevin, near Dublin. 

 There, oats were raised eighty bushels to the acre ; and other 

 crops, wheat, flax, beans and potatoes in the same exuberance. 

 This removes one of the great difficulties about these schools. 

 I do not wonder that people shrink from making additional ex- 

 periments, when they hear that this application of lime is going 

 to work wonders, or guano, or something else, and when they 

 have already made the experiment once and failed. A great 

 many suggestions which are made by chemists are tried by the 

 farmers with failure. I do not wonder that they fail. And, 

 after all, they say, this science does not answer. We would 

 better follow our fathers. That is to some extent true. 



The first object of an agricultural school, as I understand it, 

 is to collect together the experience of the best farmers in 

 Europe or in the world, and to make that experience the basis 

 of their operation. For, after all, the principles of science, 

 although certain, if we understood them, yet are not well 

 enough understood now, to be in all cases applied with cer- 

 tainty to the growth of plants. We acknowledge that. And, 

 therefore, I would place first in the advantages of an agricultu- 

 ral school, the getting together all the experience, the important 

 experience which farmers have had on tlie subject of farming, 

 and testing it on the farm connected with the school, and then, 

 if it proves good there, to recommend it to the public generally. 



