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in agricultural science, and make that science practical, concrete 

 it into methods, and crops, and tools, and manures, and fields, 

 brought to the highest state of beauty and productiveness, — to do 

 that is itself an education. To do that will keep stupidity out of 

 a man's brain if any thing can. A farm so conducted, that is, a 

 farm with a live mind on it, is as good a college to enter and 

 graduate in, as any in the land. Cultivate your farm thoroughly, 

 and your farm will cultivate you nobly. Make your farm in the 

 best sense and at all points a firstrate farm, and the farm will 

 make a firstrate man of you, as to your intellect and as far as in 

 you lies. Mind geared on to matter, brains mixed with the soil, 

 thought coupled with labor, — that makes a farm, and also a man, — 

 and a class of men fit to rule a nation, and give tone and eleva- 

 tion to the politics of the world. 



And beyond the mere theory and practice of farming, any 

 country town, though secluded, and without any rich institutions 

 in it, or any celebrity about it, is as good a university as ever Avas 

 endowed by God or man, for training willing minds to power and 

 vitality, and imparting to them the truths of science, and the facts 

 and inspirations of nature. 



Any one of the retired and quiet agricultural towns of this 

 county, — Dover, Wrentham, Needham, — is a part of God's glori- 

 ous universe, and displays as much of his creative power and 

 providential care, as any other part. Nature unfolds her wise 

 and beautiful mysteries there as amply as any where. And 

 there are eyes there capable of seeing them, and brains to search 

 them out, and souls to admire and grow up to them. Needham 

 has as large an out-doors to it, and over it, as any other place of 

 its size on either continent. What more would you have ? Look ! 

 All the astronomy that Newton or Leverrier ever knew, or that 

 such as they, the giants of science, ever will know, is roHing and 

 shining over your heads there every night. The whole charming 

 science of botany lies there spread out in the flowers and grasses 

 that adorn your hills, and meadows, and Avoods, and moving on in 

 their wondrous processes of germination and growth, and matur- 

 ing. There are trees in the town, and the young man who should 

 make a thorough study of a single one of them, and understand 

 it, all it can teach, its whole physiology, how it grows, the laws of 



