MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 485 



He said the question most important is, what shall he done? 

 The resolutions have been ably discussed, and the unanimous 

 opinion seems to be that the time has come when agriculture 

 should be exalted and receive from the government that atten- 

 tion and aid which is her right. How shall this be done? By 

 the establishment of a Board of Agriculture as indicated in one 

 of the resolutions. Make agriculture one of the departments 

 of the government. 



Mr. Clark, President of the Hampshire, Hampden and Frank- 

 lin Society, was called upon. He said the word science had 

 got to be a humbug. Some of the weekly agricultural papers had 

 held this word up as a source of terror to the farmers, threatening 

 them with the loss of their farms. Science is truth. Knowl- 

 edge is science, and knowledge is power. The man who pos- 

 sesses the most knowledge, finds it all useful upon his farm; 

 the more he knows, the more he wants to know. The objec- 

 tions to this subject, he believed, arose ^rom ignorance, and 

 from those who are willing to abide in their ignorance. Farm- 

 ers ought not thus to be taught to break down their own in- 

 terests. We want more knowledge to prevent the misapplication 

 of labor — and a school is required to impart this knowledge. 



Mr. Daggett, of the Bristol Society, next spoke, and ex- 

 pressed his gratification at Mr. Nash's renjarks, but thought 

 they did not go far enough. Mr. Nash, he said, showed that 

 the great majority of farmers could not be thoroughly, scientifi- 

 cally educated. Is not this, Mr. D. asked, an additional argu- 

 ment why a school should be established ? Suppose a school 

 be established with say one hundred and twenty scholars, and 

 after having acquired their education, they distributed them- 

 selves through the towns in the Commonwealth, where they 

 put theory and knowledge into practice. Their neighbors 

 around them would copy their example — and thus, hy example, 

 would this knowledge be disseminated from town to town 

 throughout the State. Why, he asked, do farmers take so 

 little interest in the promotion of this knowledge ? It is be- 

 cause they do not feel its importance. The great object of 

 this school should be to disseminate knowledge throughout the 



