MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 431 



of farming, must know something about chemistry. The 

 chemical operations are constantly going on in a plant. 



That brings in another science, — physiology. He must 

 know the laws of life, how this or that influence will affect 

 the growth of plants ; just as a physician has to learn physiol- 

 ogy, in order to know how this thing or that thing will affect 

 the life of individual men. You have then the science of 

 physiology to be applied extensively. And so I might speak of 

 botany and physiology, which are very much concerned in agri- 

 culture, the character of the soil, and a number of other sciences. 



To suppose that a man is going to be able, at the present 

 day, without any knowledge of these sciences, to make im- 

 provements in agriculture by haphazard experiments, is, it 

 seems to me, absurd. Now, if we can gain, from the establish- 

 ment of a school, a little advantage at first, we shall gain a 

 great deal in time. We learn one thing after another, so as to 

 make progress. That is what is doing in Europe. They have 

 found there unless they have these schools, that scientific men, 

 who are distinguished, will not attend to the matter of conduct- 

 ing these experiments, so that benefit will result. The French 

 government have just established a school at Versailles, at the 

 old kingly domain. And this is one of the reasons they have 

 given for it, — we must have, they say, men who will devote 

 their attention to this subject, who will push their discoveries 

 to get some new thing, not expecting, at once, to obtain any 

 great improvement. 



Now these principles, the principles resulting from expe- 

 rience, the principles resulting from these sciences, can all be 

 taught the young men who go to those schools-. And it takes 

 a great while to learn them. They are not applied extensively 

 in our country, although we are making some progress. Only 

 think, sir, this whole matter, the most difficult of all the arts, 

 depending upon experiments the most delicate, and influences 

 the most potent, for success or failure, whose dynamics, if I 

 may so say, being such as to require the most acute mind, is 

 all left for each individual man to find out. The wonder is, 

 that the farmers of New England have done so much, not that 

 they have not done more ; because they have one of the most 



