74 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



new systems of husbandry propagated by their influences, profits 

 have increased from 500 to 1,000 per cent. Great enterprises 

 like the cultivation of beets for sugar in France, and its exten- 

 sion to Russia, through the means of educated agriculturists, 

 imported for that purpose from the former country, have been 

 fostered by the appropriate scientific knowledge, and the value of 

 arable lands has increased two and three fold. In the little 

 kingdom of Hesse, which, during our revolution, was so poor 

 that its mercenary ruler sold his subjects to England as instru- 

 ments of our attempted subjugation, land under the treatment 

 of improved husbandry has risen in value three hundred per 

 cent. But we need only to look around among ourselves to see 

 what education in farming has done and is doing. We have 

 been educated by these agricultural societies, by the farmers' 

 clubs, by the newspapers, and every one of you who is taking up 

 a specialty, such as breeding stock, raising fruit, or sending 

 milk to the cities, is in a process of education, because it rouses 

 you to study all the departments connected with your labors, 

 and to apply all your energies to make the resources of your 

 farm meet the demands for the article you raise or sell. But we 

 all regret that in our youth, when we were pursuing our avoca- 

 tions on the farm, we had not the opportunity of studying the 

 sciences so intimately connected with our pursuits, that we 

 might now have the knowledge through whose application we 

 could make our farms produce twofold more than they do, the 

 pleasure which the prosecution of any undertaking whose ra- 

 tionale we understand always bestows, and the perseverance and 

 method which are only given by precepts and principles grounded 

 on demonstration. This is what our children want — not mere 

 theoretical study, not a college education in the old sense, but an 

 acquaintance with the physical sciences carried along pari passu 

 with their work on the farms, thus combining the knowledge of 

 principles with their constant application. In addition they 

 want more from us than mere bed and board and a chance to 

 work hard. They need our sympathetic encouragement, our in- 

 stilment of the belief that agriculture can be the noblest em- 

 ployment of mankind, an application of all the knowledge we 

 possess or can acquire, and at the proper season an appreciation 

 of their efforts by a partnership or interest in the profits of the 

 farm. By this course we shall be co-workers in raising up a 



