27 



successfully, and with such general advantage, as through the 

 training and instruction of a college. To establish this con- 

 nection, it is not necessary that all should participate directly 

 in the discipline of the institution. The object will be secured 

 by the pervading influence of the example of farmers, who 

 have had this advantage and manifest the fruits of it in a 

 higher and more profitable culture. The living farmer, disci- 

 plined in his calling, master of the resources of his business, 

 which science has developed, managing a model farm and 

 making money by it, is the best possible missionary in the 

 cause of a progressive agriculture. The distribution of libra- 

 ries will not begin to have the influence of one such man. 

 By the charm of success he will convert whole neighborhoods 

 to the right works and true doctrine. A bundled such men 

 might revolutionize the farming of a state. 



Nor will the college diminish the useful and important func- 

 tions of a society like this. It will rather multiply and enlarge 

 them. It will raise the standard of competition. It will in- 

 troduce new subjects of experiment, new processes to be tested, 

 improved, discussed and applauded with the prize. A more 

 varied and higher interest M'ill centre in these gatherings. 

 The college sending out to the farms every year a new body 

 of men, fresh from the latest results of investigation and ex- 

 perience, will be felt in our societies as a constant source of 

 life, of progress, and of hope. 



Such an institution peculiarly meets the wants of the com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts. We need the higher methods 

 of agriculture to cultivate the land of Massachusetts as it 

 should be cultivated. We have here in diffused centres of 

 manufacturing industry and dense population, the conditions 

 of a self-sustained fertility and of the most profitable farming 

 The agriculture of the state has undoubtedly been benefitted 

 by it, but not nearly to the extent that is possible. The soil 

 of the state, originally not rich, has been impoverished by the 

 harvests of many generations. The aim should be to raise it 

 to a condition of luxuriant productiveness. It can be done. 



