246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the best farmers and most intelligent and enterprising citizens 

 of the day, who felt the need of liglit and were willing to search 

 for it wherever it could be found. As the work grew in impor- 

 tance, a Board of Agriculture was established, as a receptacle 

 for accumulating researches and a point from which the results 

 of careful investigations might be diffused among the people. 

 And, finally, an Agricultural College has been endowed as the 

 most powerful agent in the whole system of agricultural educa- 

 tion. When we assembled here for debate and instruction, we 

 brought with us all the experience of the past, and that spirit 

 of inquiry which has done so much to give us a knowledge of 

 those laws under which the practical affairs of life can be con- 

 ducted. The literature which we brought with us — the obser- 

 vations of intelligent breeders and cultivators — the explorations 

 of science — the speculations of educated labor, viewing with 

 cultivated eye the work of its own hands — all call upon us to 

 devote ourselves faithfully to that work of agricultural instruc- 

 tion, whose crudities were destroyed, and upon whose path new 

 light was shed, by the fi,re which Bacon set in a moment of con- 

 tempt and despair. No philosopher burns the books of our day. 

 For into the great laboratory of modern science the practical 

 farmer pours his observations ; and neither the scientific explorer 

 nor the farmer can afford to destroy the offering. It is this 

 which gives an Agricultural College in our own Sf)ate such an 

 important position, as the spot around which all the intellectual 

 efforts for agriculture may cluster. As a part of our system of 

 education it is invaluable, promising not only new sources of 

 knowledge, but also new energy to one great means of our pros- 

 perity. It is a part of that great work which our Common- 

 wealth is carrying on for her strength and elevation. Behind 

 this college is a great record — around it is a great ambition — 

 and before it is a career of usefulness of which we and our chil- 

 dren will one day be proud — if we will but remember the great 

 opportunities and obligations of the age in which we live. Turn 

 with me, then, for a few moments from the intellectual, social 

 and civil condition of that age when Bacon burnt his books, to 

 this day of ours, in which all the influences of an educated 

 community surround us, and Massachusetts offers her example 

 in all endeavors for good. 



