34 MR. Oliver's address. 



are among the best educated. The moment he shall feel the 

 benefits of education, he will be most desirous that the young 

 farmer should have those benefits before he goes between the 

 plough-handles, or first swings the scythe. How the latter 

 shall be provided for, and what means of right education shall 

 be secured, — will naturally suggest themselves to the mind of 

 the former, when it shall itself have been liberalized by the 

 influences of this very education, for which we plead. He 

 will require an Agricultural Department to be established by 

 Congress, as a part of the executive organization of the General 

 Government. This, like many other useful and necessary pro- 

 jects, which it is the proper office of Congress to discuss, and 

 when approved, as this particular one could not fail to be ap- 

 proved, to put into active operation, has, I regret to say it, hith- 

 erto failed of success. 



Again, farmers will require that there be in each State, 

 what has already been established by our own Legislature at 

 its last session, a State Board of Agriculture, with a working 

 Secretary, competent in every department of agricultural 

 science and art, to act as an organ of communication, between 

 the State Government and the several Agricultural Societies 

 throughout the Commonwealth, and to communicate instruc- 

 tion and advice to every farmer who should consult him. 

 What an impulse to agriculture would the right man for the 

 place impart ? They will further require that there be creat- 

 ed, what Massachusetts yet lacks, agricultural schools, in such 

 number and location as would accommodate the several parts 

 of the State, to be taught by men of extensive attainment in 

 all science having any connection with agriculture, aided by 

 men already skilled in all the practical operations of actual 

 farming. 



I will not stop to make detailed statements of the stud- 

 ies that should be pursued in such schools. They have 

 been exactly and admirably set forth in the Report of the 

 Commissioners upon that subject, made to our Legislature 

 by Professsor Hitchcock, in the session of 185L Let me com- 

 mend this Report to your notice in all its minute details, as 

 worthy of your special attention. Let me further commend to 

 your careful reading, the excellent Address delivered before 



