MR. gray's address. 17 



qualified to take their proper stand among tiic learned 

 of other professions. If the farmers, mechanics, and 

 merchants willed it, we should soon have seminaries sus- 

 taining the same relation to the various departments of 

 husiness, that our colleges and professional schools do 

 to the learned professions. It would he easy to quote 

 the opinions of many experienced farmers and men of 

 practical wisdom, in confirmation of the views here sug- 

 gested.* It would be interesting to point out examples 

 of the success of similar institutions in other countries. f 

 It would be profitable to sketch the plan of such an insti- 

 tution here,t but our limits forbid. 



The establishment of such institutions will furnish the 

 best means of diffusing a correct knowledge of agriculture 

 through the farming community. The sons of farmers, 

 educated into the principles of the art, would carry them 

 home and teach them to their fiithers, who would thus be 

 induced to apply them to practical use, or as they left 

 these institutions, and engaged in the practice of their 

 profession, they would be the means of awakening an 

 interest in the communities where they may chance to 

 be placed, which would soon be manifestby a demand for 

 more general attention to the subject in all our literary 

 institutions. By thus multiplying examples, the utility of 

 the subject will be felt, and the most prejudiced farmdrs 

 among us will send their sons to the institutions to learn 

 the secret of that art whose magic touch converts their 

 barren wastes into fruitful fields ; to become possessed 

 with the knowledge of those natural powers which like 



* See Buel's Cultivator, vol. 1, p. VZ. 



t See an Account of the agricultural school at Howfyl, Switzerland, in the 

 Penny Magazine, October number, 1834. 



t Such an institution, or college, should not be devoted wholly to the studv 

 and practice of agriculture, but should be equivalent in all the departments of 

 English literature, to our colleges, and superior to them in the natural sciences. 

 Hence it would require at least three years, (four would be better,) of close study. 

 It should be furnished with a farm, and the operations of horticulture and agri- 

 culture should be taught practically to some extent. At least, the pupils should 

 witness the processes under the direction of a teacher. It should also be fur- 

 nished with e.\tcnsive philosophical apparatus, a cabinet of minerals, a chemical 

 laboratory, for elementary instruction in chemistry and for the analysis of soils, 

 and a library of agricultural books, to which may be added, teachers of the high- 

 est qualifications in their respective departments. 



3 



