AGRICULTURE AN ART. 5 



play to destroy. Nicety of operation in sowing, weeding, study- 

 ing the character of the soil, adaptation of this or that manure 

 to this or that field, will pay as well as the same means in the 

 garden. We see this in what is called market gardening ; and 

 the most ready returns are from such farms as pursue the 

 course which improved husbandry recommends. 



But no art can successfully be pursued without a science to 

 aid and assist ; to prompt the labor and to point out the course. 

 Hence arises science of agriculture, which has enlisted the 

 labors of a Davy, Humboldt, Liebig, and many other illustrious 

 names in Europe beside. It were hardly to be expected in a 

 country like ours, so young, (and yet so old,) but with so many 

 vocations open to its inhabitants, seemingly more honorable, 

 and easier of pursuit than agriculture, (but alas ! too often the 

 reverse,) that the same careful solicitude for its advancement 

 should have yet arisen here as abroad. The foresight and pros- 

 pective wisdom of our greatest and most distinguished patriots 

 have strongly recommended some action in our institutions of 

 learning towards the enlightened pursuit of agriculture. But 

 the precise method of inducing the study of farming as other 

 studies are sought, is a difficult question to solve, and may not 

 be easily pointed out. I do not pretend to offer you, gentlemen, 

 any plan of my own, from ignorance of what has been done, and 

 from inability to devise such. Yet it appears to me evident that 

 the first obstacle in our way is the too common idea that other 

 pursuits are more honorable than that of the cultivation of the 

 soil. There perhaps is a good deal, too, in the remark that the 

 highest kinds of agriculture are expensive and will not pay ; 

 and that artistic and scientific farming will do well enough for 

 the capitalist, who can afford to lose money if needful. I think 

 the root of this mistake lies deeper than this surface view. 

 Agricultural schools and colleges may be well enough, but they 

 seem to me to have objectionable features. I have found among 

 our academies and high schools, for instance, where there is any 

 unusual amount of apparatus, that there generally is the most 

 ignorance of the science it is intended to illustrate. 



The universal eagerness for office affects every branch of our 

 social industry. The consequence is apt to be the appoint- 

 ment of incompetent teachers and professors ; and the very 

 richness and abundance of the apparatus of the establishment 



