548 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



suggestions of merely practical men. A person has only to read 

 an agricultural paper, containing the opinions of those who are 

 fresh from the field, he has only to attend a meeting for dis- 

 cussion, in which he hears modes of tillage advocated by gen- 

 tlemen who confidently lay claim to have put them to the 

 proof of successive trial, and see how common it is for them to 

 be in direct conflict with each other ; and for one to overthrow 

 what another asserts to have been established on the firmest 

 foundations of experience, to be convinced that practice has its 

 uncertainties as well as science. A hundred practical men wili 

 earnestly advocate a mode of agriculture which they have 

 proved by the demonstration of experiment, to be the best mode 

 in the world, which a hundred other men, as experienced and wise 

 as they, will in the same manner make it clear, is of no value 

 at all. If science and practice often disagree, neither does 

 practice agree with practice. Practical men have no right to 

 throw this imputation on science, until they have wiped the 

 reproach from themselves. 



If all the theologians in the United States were convened in 

 one place to debate their points of faith, and all the agricultur- 

 ists to discuss their points of practice, I doubt whether it would 

 not come out, that there was nearly as much disagreement in 

 the one assembly as in the other. This I confess to be a strong 

 assertion. How much do practical men differ about the disease 

 of the potato ? There have been as many theories about ihe 

 source of that extensive malady, as have been broached re- 

 specting original sin, and what one recommends as an infalli- 

 ble specific, another declares, on the faith and knowledge of a 

 practical man, to be inert and powerless. One objection to 

 agricultural schools, which some assert with much confidence, 

 is, that they will afford their advantages to but a portion of the 

 people. They will not be democratic and diffusive enough in 

 their influence, and while a few will be gathered within their 

 walls, to reap their fruits, the great mass of the people will be 

 left unprovided for, and unbenefited. 



In reply to this, it may be said that the number of schools 

 of this description, will be limited only by the patronage which 

 the public are willing to afford them. They may be multiplied 



