16 MR. gray's address. 



lawyers, physicians, merchants, mechanics, and sailors. 

 They have, as it were, gone out of their appropriate 

 fields, to cultivate those of their neighbors ; they have 

 been ready to aid every other profession but their own; 

 they have sent their sons to learn to be gentlemen, and 

 to pass well in the world; but have not made provision 

 for teaching them that profession in which they are to 

 spend their life and gain their support. 



Attempts have been made in several places to intro- 

 duce agriculture as a branch of study, but have gener- 

 ally failed, either because it was a plan to raise up a sink, 

 ing institution that had no foundation to it, or because 

 the institution was established for the mere study of agri- 

 culture, as if no preparatory course were required, no 

 discipline of mind requisite, to obtain a scientific knowl- 

 edge of the subject. Efforts are now in progress to 

 introduce the subject into the Teachers' Seminary* 

 at Andover ; lectures are given upon the subject the 

 present term, and it remains to be seen whether the 

 farming community will sustain the effort, and make it 

 a thorough and permanent means of advancing the 

 art, or whether they will permit it to add another un- 

 successful attempt to raise the employment to the 

 dignity of a profession, and rescue it from merited con- 

 tempt. 



A better day, I trust is dawning upon us. The pub- 

 lic mind is awakening to the subject. Scientific men 

 are turning their attention to it. The friends of educa- 

 tion are anxiously inquiring for something to remedy the 

 defects which exist in this respect in our system of popu- 

 lar instruction; and it is now for the formers themselves 

 to put forth their efforts, and we shall soon have insti- 

 tutions of a high character, where young men may ob- 

 tain a thorough and practical English education; where 

 the) may study agriculture as a science, and become 



* I am now able to state that arrangements have been completed for instruc- 

 tion in scientific agriculture, and that in addition an extensive garden will be 

 laid out in the spring, and all the branches of horticulture attended to by a prac- 

 tical and scientific horticulturist. One of the principal objects will be to culti- 

 vate fruit trees and fruit; of course all the processes of cultivating fruit and vege- 

 tables may be studied practically by those who may wish to patronize the effort. 



