THE CHEMICAL PROFESSORSHIP. 123 



of his work as a scientific chemist. I do not believe that you 

 could have had a better appointment. I believe that the gen- 

 tleman is not only fully competent to fulfil his duties with honor 

 to the institution and credit to himself, but I believe he is one 

 of those men who will advance his science also, if he is not 

 overburdened with local duties and with teaching. One word 

 more about it. He is a foreigner. He has received his teach- 

 ing abroad, and that may cause a prejudice against him, for we 

 are apt to think that it would be wiser, when we organize a new 

 department in our schools, to take some one of our young men, 

 educate him, and put him in the place. No doubt, in many 

 cases, that would be a wise course ; but, by so doing, you retard 

 your harvest by so many years. If you take up a young man 

 now, and educate him to become the agricultural chemist in 

 your college, you must give him five, six or seven years' instruc- 

 tion ; and during that whole time, your pupils will have nothing 

 in that special department, your institution is not progressing ; 

 in fact, as I said, you retard your harvest by that much. Take a 

 competent man wherever you can find him. Whether a native- 

 born or foreign-born citizen, or whether he be no citizen at all, 

 if he is competent to teach chemistry well, have him. He will 

 educate pupils in as short a time as you can educate them to be 

 agricultural chemists, and thus provide professors for the other 

 agricultural colleges which are springing up like mushrooms all 

 over the country. Your college will then not only provide your 

 own agricultural chemists, but will be the nursery of chemists 

 for other institutions. It is not a very dangerous thing to take 

 professors from foreign parts. I am such an one, and I have in 

 a measure succeeded in making myself a native American. 



Col. Wilder. In regard to the Johannisberg wine, which 

 has been alluded to, I ought to say that at Johannisberg, as 

 everywhere else, there are found little nooks and corners where 

 grapes and other fruits succeed better than elsewhere. The 

 Johannisberg estate comprises only fifty or sixty acres, and 

 but a small portion of it produces this very remarkable wine. 

 On the low lands, where grains and vegetables will grow, the 

 wine is very poor. While the wine produced from the low 

 lands will bring only half a dollar a bottle, or two or three 

 shillings sterling, the best wines, which are made from those 

 choice nooks and corners, — sheltered places, high, dry, sunny 



