MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



An Address before the Barnstable Agricultural Society, Oct. 8, 1857. 



BY GEO. S. BOUTWELL. 



Ill the month of February, 1855, a distinguished American, 

 who has read much, and acquired, by conversation, observation 

 and travels in this country and Europe, tlie liighest culture 

 of American society, wrote these noticeable sentences : " The 

 farmers have not kept pace, in intelligence, with the rest of the 

 community. They do not put brain manure enough into their 

 acres. Our style of farming is slovenly, dawdling and stupid, 

 and the waste, especially in manure, is immense. I suppose we 

 are about, in farming, where the lowlands of Scotland were 

 fifty years ago ; and what immense strides agriculture has made 

 in Great Britain since the battle of Waterloo, and how impos- 

 sible it would have been for the farmers to have held their own 

 without." * 



It would not be civil for me to indorse these statements as 

 introductory to a brief address upon Agricultural Education ; 

 but I should not accept them at all did they not contain truth 

 enough to furnish a text for a layman's discourse before an 

 assembly of farmers. 



Competent American travellers concur in the opinion, that 

 the Europeans generally, and especially our brethren of England, 

 Ireland and Scotland, are far in advance of us in scientific and 

 practical agriculture. This has been stated or admitted l)y Mr. 

 Column, President Hitchcock, and last by Mr. French, wlio has 

 recently visited Europe under the auspices of the National 

 Agricultural Society. 



There are good reasons for the past and for the existing 

 superiority of the old world ; and there are good reasons, also, 



*IIon. Georce S. Ilillard. 



