MR. proctor's address. 37 



then may the fingers of the young and the feeble be ad- 

 vantageously applied to picking the leaves of the mul- 

 berry, and to aiding the labors of the most perfect of all 

 manufacturers, the silk worm. Until some such variety 

 can be naturalized in our soil (and of this I will not des- 

 pair,) I shall have little hope of this culture.* 



Repeatedly has the propriety and expediency of the 

 establishment of schools for the instruction of young 

 men in the science and practice of agriculture been agi- 

 tated. So oftcFi has this been adverted to in public ad- 

 dresses, were it not for its intrinsic importance, I should 

 hardly fee! justified in again introducing it. The Acad- 

 emies at Byfield and at Andover, have been presented 

 to your notice, wdth all the plausibility that the eloquence 

 of a late President, j or the ingenuity of a learned Pro- 

 fessorj could suggest ; but still we have none of their 

 graduates at our festivals ; — we grope on still without 

 the illumination of their rays. Why is this ? Is the idea 

 of instructing young men in a business that is to occupy 

 their time for life a fanciful one, that cannot be carried 

 into practical operation ? Such is not true of other em- 

 ployments. Who that has a son destined to be a car- 

 penter, a blacksmith, or even a manufacturer of cloths, 

 or of shoes, hesitates to appropriate years of his time to 

 qualify him in his art ? And does the farmer's art de- 

 mand less instruction ? The mistake lies in a misappre- 

 hension of the qualifications requisite in a farmer, and 

 in the manner these qualifications are to be acquired. 

 If farmers heretofore have been deterred from placing 

 their sons at school as proposed, by their want of confi- 

 dence in those who conducted such schools, because 

 they did not exhibit the hartlened hands and sinewy 

 limbs requisite for the handling of stone, or holding the 



* From the abundant reservoir of facts annually furnished by the Commis- 

 sioner of Patents, we learn that 315.905 pounds of cocoons were raised within 

 the United States the past year. This would seem to justify the belief that 

 some parts of our country are favorable to the growing of silk ; and that all 

 that is wanted is more care in the selection and adaptation of the varieties to 

 the diiTerent parts. 



f Hon. E. Moseley, of Newburyport. 



J Rev. A, Gray, of Andover. 



