OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PARMER. 73 



only avail ourselves of these advantages, but be clamorous for 

 more. There is no reason why in our common schools sciences 

 which are the foundation of agricultural knowledge and prac- 

 tice should not be taught ; why our girls, as well as our boys, 

 should not learn the elements of a science by which, perhaps, 

 they may yet rise to fame and fortune. Some one has said that 

 God never made a man who was safe to be trusted out of sight of 

 a woman, and certainly we are all the happier for keeping them 

 in view and there is no reason why the coming woman, who is 

 described as a bright-eyed, full-chested, broad-shouldered, large 

 souled, intellectual being, able to walk, able to eat, and of course 

 able to talk, will not assist in the management of the farms, and 

 eventually usurp the business of raising small fruits for market, 

 also vegetables, and flowers, and occasionally give such attention 

 to raising stock as is not deemed unseemly by ladies of the best 

 breeding abroad. And if these high considerations that I have 

 set before you do not win your sympathies, let me assure you 

 that education in your calling is the true road to riches. It is 

 only by the ignorant that active capital acquired by thei^indus- 

 try is unemployed in their business, and among the great advan- 

 tages of scientific agriculture will be that of investing in it the 

 moneyed capital which will be as productive as in other pursuits, 

 and much more safely employed than if embarked in hazardous 

 enterprises or doubtful investments. What Mr. Motley says of 

 the Dutch Republic in its palmiest days is applicable to ours : — 



" In proportion to their numbers they were more productive 

 of wealth than any other nation then existing. An excellent 

 reason why the people were so well governed, so productive, 

 and so enterprising, was the simple fact that they were an edu- 

 cated people." 



Now we claim to be an educated nation, but we cannot really 

 become so until all professions and trades, not merely one or two 

 or three, are represented by youth educated in all the special 

 learning applicable thereunto, and each have a share and share 

 alike in the sciences which underlie all business and callings. 



The view that I present of the opportunity of the New Eng- 

 land farmer is no wise chimerical. Scientific agriculture is 

 hardly of half a century's growth, and in that time it has reno- 

 vated nearly the whole of Europe. Agricultural schools have 

 existed in the Old Country more than fifty years, and under the 

 10* 



