GEORGE R. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 597 



And shall youthful America, the school of freemen, the home 

 of enterprise, the birth-place of invention and genius, the land 

 where every son is a king, and every daughter a queen, long 

 behold these successful experiments and remain inactive ? 



The existence of such institutions is only a question of time. 

 New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other states, are deliberat- 

 ing on the best methods of action. Foreign schools may not 

 be congenial to our soil ; but they will serve as models ; they 

 will prove suggestive. If they have been successful there, they 

 will prove more so here, where all enjoy the advantages of edu- 

 cation, and where the institutions of our country and every 

 circumstance favor their success. 



We make no objection to what the Commonwealth has done 

 for other institutions ; but we would most respectfully ask, 

 why it is, that her funds have been so liberally bestowed for 

 educational and charitable purposes, and for internal improve- 

 ments, when no appropriation, 7iot even on-^ dollar, has been 

 granted for the professional education of the farmer ? 



Our common school fund amounts to nearly one million of 

 dollars ; but great as are the blessings which have flowed and 

 will continue to flow from it, yet why should not a portion of 

 the State income from this resource be appropriated for agri- 

 cultural education. Let the thousands of our farmers weigh 

 well the subject, and decide the question. We have said other 

 states are deliberating on the best modes of action ; and the 

 sooner Massachusetts moves in the cause, the more will she 

 save of the renown for which she is so justly celebrated in all 

 that pertains to knowledge, philanthropy and virtue. 



The Progress of Agriculture, and the Necessity for its 

 further progress. 



{Extract from an Address by George R. Russell, LL. D., at the last Fair of 

 the JVbrfolk Agricultural Society.] 



Although agriculture was the first regular occupation of the 

 human race, and has, without interval or cessation, employed a 

 large portion of it, giving the highest civilization in proportion 



