34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



deductions, cau be raised at a cost not exceeding the average 

 cost of Western corn. 



Moreover, the annual product of hay will be greatly 

 increased if the cultivation of corn is pursued, for it may 

 safely be said that no other crop which does not require 

 higher treatment and better tillage so well prepares land for 

 grass. This statement I base upon the common system of 

 culture ; but should the claim for the Stockbridge fertilizer be 

 sustained by experience we may defy the competition of the 

 West as far, at least, as our own wants are concerned. 



My confidence, however, goes far beyond what is estab- 

 lished or even claimed for science in its relations to practical 

 agriculture. I now see, what in the beginning I did not see, 

 that the apparent value of the Agricultural College will be 

 greater in the region of scientific discovery and invention, 

 and their application to practical agriculture, than in the 

 preparation of young men for the management of farms. The 

 latter idea was the English and continental idea, and in the 

 beginning it was the American idea.; but the indications are 

 that the advantages will be more largely in a quarter which 

 at that time was not much considered by most of us. 



I have recently returned from Central New York, where I 

 was assured by persons of respectability and information that 

 the advantages of the investigations and teachings of the 

 professor of the Cornell University, in the department of the 

 dairy, would far exceed the cost of th*e Agricultural College. 

 These are the beginnings, and we may safely prophesy that 

 the agriculture of the future will be, in its main and most 

 profitable branches, only a system of applied chemistry. 

 This does not imply that every farmer is to be a chemist, nor 

 indeed that any farmer need concern himself with the science 

 at all. But as every farmer will be called to consider the 

 value of the science in its applications, it will follow that 

 many, and especially many young men, destined to engage 

 in agriculture, will become interested in and students of the 

 science. 



The knowledge of a valuable thing is of the first impor- 

 tance, but second only is its diffusion among those who can 

 derive advantage from it ; and especially its diifusion in an 

 authoritative and a responsible manner, so as to command the 



