DUTIES OF AN AGRICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 3 



the school, or the club, or from those societies which excite 

 investigation and experiment by the stimulus of competition. 



And it is difficult for agricultural education to go further. 

 For agriculture has not yet become a fixed science. Men begin 

 to vaunt themselves upon their success in supplying the human 

 race with food, wlien a mysterious disease invades one great 

 staple of their productions, and year after year rolls on without 

 revealing to the anxious explorer the slightest remedy. One 

 of the illustrious minds of the age applies the full power of sci- 

 ence to supplying the deficiencies of every soil, and to furnish- 

 ing each plant with its own peculiar food, but is finally obliged 

 to acknowledge that the relation existing between the earth 

 and the fruits thereof is not to be entirely reached by any 

 human power. 



The science of agriculture is therefore of all sciences the 

 most uncertain, whenever you would pass beyond the bounds 

 of actual experience. The details of farming may indeed be 

 taught. The nse of the implements of husbandry is something 

 that must be learned. A knowledge of the proper rotation of 

 crops, and of tlie adaptation of soils to the vegetable kingdom, 

 comes from teaching and observation. The rules applicable to 

 tlie proper proportions of animals may be got in the schools. 

 Building and draining and planting and fertilizing, may all be 

 instilled into tlie mind, until the student of agriculture may go 

 forth ready to subdue the hardest soil, and filled with tastes 

 whicli will make his farm agreeable to the eye, as well as an 

 addition to the wealth of the community. So far perhaps 

 agriculture may be made a science. And so far, an agricul- 

 tural society is capable of furnishing the principles of that 

 science. 



In such a school as this, who are the professors and teach- 

 ers ? Is not every member who contributes his mite to the 

 treasury of knowledge ? I have seen a young man in our own 

 county who by care and diligence and skill and method, has 

 procured year after year, from soil yielding previously hardly 

 enough to pay its taxes, a crop of turnips which gave him a 

 handsome annual income. Is not tliis young man a good 

 teacher in the science of agriculture ? I have seen one of the 

 most thriving towns in this section of the State enriched, until 

 its whole population appears to be elevated above the thought 



