No. 4.] NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. Ill 



sons tiud daughters of farmers and of all others engaged in 

 industrial pursuits, by the establishment of colleges whose 

 leading object is required by law to be " the teaching of 

 such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and 

 the mechanic arts. " This necessarily includes the wdiole 

 range of the mathematical, the natural and the physical 

 sciences, such as botany, chemistry, natural philosophy and 

 other related branches of study, with their manifold applica- 

 tions in the industries of our time. The young man who 

 acquires a knowledge of the fundamental principles of these 

 branches of science has all the theoretical equipment that is 

 necessary for success in carrying on the practical operations 

 of farming. You are to be congratulated on the fact that 

 one of the best of these institutions is your own Agricult- 

 ural College at Amherst. The breadth and thoroughness 

 of its W'ork, its high standards of training and the eminent 

 qualitications of the men who have had charge of its admin- 

 istration and of its various branches of instruction, have 

 given it a most enviable reputation throughout the United 

 States and beyond. 



A great difficulty in agricultural education has been and is 

 to devise some system by which the students of the college 

 shall be educated in such a way as to send them back to the 

 farm, instead of away from it. If the standard of education 

 is lower than that of other institutions of college grade, 

 farmers refuse, and rightly refuse, to subject their sons to 

 that kind of disparaging comparison. On the other hand, 

 if the standard is as high as that of other colle<res, the irrad- 

 uate has in most cases a practical advantage from the fact 

 that, in addition to his theoretical training in the knowledge 

 and application of principles, he has acquired some famil- 

 iarity with practical methods of work, which supersedes the 

 necessity of a long apprenticeship. But this may naturally 

 lead him away from the farm ; for, in addition to the proper 

 training, a young man, in order to make profitable use of his 

 education as a farmer, must either be the possessor of a 

 farm, or of capital enough to purchase and equip one ; since 

 in the absence of that he can make better use of his acquire- 

 ments than as a laborer on another's farm. The great ma- 

 jority of our college graduates are not fortunate enough to 



