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drag the sharp upright by the blunt horizontal, and thus 

 scratch the ground — in fact, you could plough. There are 

 nations, like the Persians, who have never ceased to gaze with 

 awe on this invention, and who stil) use it. Others there are, 

 who have improved it until they have reached steam-plows 

 and gang-plows. Let us side with the latter nations, and 

 never say of any tool, it is good enough. Let us encourage 

 all sorts of research ; but especially that of highly educated 

 men, for of them is our best hope. Good examples are not 

 far to seek. Look at Germany. Perhaps somebody will ob- 

 ject to looking at Germany, on the plea that it is the land of 

 priveleged classes and of military rule. True ; but remem- 

 ber, we are talking of crops and not of nobles and soldiers. 

 A man may have a bad temper, and yet raise excellent string 

 beans. We do not scorn to drink tea because there is a 

 Tai-ping rebellion in China. Therefore, we look into Ger- 

 many, and, after getting through the stratum of nobles and 

 soldiers, ("who, it may be said in parenthesis, have thorough- 

 ly studied their trade of killing and have brought it to the fine 

 point of perfection) we shall find a people who have perhaps 

 more knowledge than all the rest of the world together. Not 

 that they are a fine-grained or a well-to-do people ; on the 

 contrary, one is struck by a certain coarseness and by a 

 general lack of means ; but in knowledge and research, they 

 • are to-day the world's leaders. Their governments are well- 

 known as exceptionally thrifty and economical, insomuch that 

 when a man is said to " Work for the king of Prussia," it 

 means that he works for nothing. If, then, these govern- 

 ments support certain establishments, we may be sure they 

 expect much advantage from them. And now look at their 

 establishments for the study of agriculture. The last statis- 

 tics tell us that Prussia proper has ninety colleges, academies, 



