764 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Some mode, then, must be devised, by which the practices 

 of Imshandri/ shall become famiUar ivhile the intellectual founda- 

 tion is being- laid ; and this is the point Avhich has been sadly 

 overlooked. While the mind is stored with facts, their appli- 

 cation is entirely neglected, and the young farmer enters upon 

 his estate, to conduct his affairs, as would the landsman, called 

 to the helm of a ship, when approaching a lee shore I He finds 

 himself surrounded by implements whose names are familiar, 

 and whose uses he has often discussed and commended, but of 

 their fitness for any particular work he knows little or nothing! 

 He becomes oppressed with the thought that he is master of 

 the estate but not of its operations', and in these must remain 

 the servant of others, until, by dint of experience, he has ac- 

 quired that knowledge which should have been gathered with 

 his theories. 



This is the first false step in the education of the young 

 farmer. His practical progress should begin and keep pace 

 with bis intellectual progress. By a system of familiar teach- 

 ing from the parent, he must be called to the barn, the garden, 

 the field and workshop, and made acquainted with the duties 

 of each. And this must be done by a course so gradual and 

 natural, and with so little interruption to the indulgence in 

 amusements agreeable to every youth, that he shall scarcely be 

 able, in his riper years, to say when his practical education 

 began. It must come so kindly and fitly with other things 

 about him, so in consonance with his views and desires, that 

 he shall have no knowledge of mental eifort in acquiring the 

 uses of all the implements of the farm. 



At tie sam^e time, he must be led quietly along into the 

 higher regions of agricultural pursuit — into what may be 

 termed, without too much license, the poetry of the farm. He 

 must learn that the commonest things about l)im involve some 

 great principle, necessary to be understood. For example: 

 if watering the cattle, be may be required to-give the principle 

 of raising water by the pump, or some other question in hy- 

 draulics ; if teaming or ploughing, why the work is more ea,sily 

 performed when the team is near the load than when further 

 removed ; if in the morning, when the grass is sparkling with 

 pearly drops, hoic dew is deposited ; or, if in the silent and im- 

 pressive evening hours, why he is chilled in passing the valley, 



