ESSAY. 



17 



mial theorem no more a fixed fact, than that gypsum 

 (sulphate of lime,) when sown upon land, will react 

 upon the ammonia in the air. — Therefore Agriculture, 

 which supports all, has been slow to take its stand 

 among the sciences. 



Boys, deeming agriculture the lowest of arts, the 

 meanest of vocations, have sought the professions ; the 

 ministry, and have been forced to turn to the woods and 

 fields for their noblest, sublimest lessons ; the study of 

 medicine, and in their study of chemistry, have come 

 to find themselves better farmers than ever, and that a 

 better remedy than any in the whole pharmacopoeia, is 

 the healthful exercise which out-door labor gives. 



It is a pity that the beauties of farming should be 

 better seen from other stand-points, than the one the 

 farmer himself occupies; that they who are shut up 

 inside four walls of city brick, should know more of 

 chemistry, botany, mineralogy, entomology, than those 

 whose daily occupation brings them so much in contact 

 with these sciences; that through their distant and 

 casual glimpses, they should know more of the book 

 of nature, than those before whom its pages lie con- 

 stantly open. 



The agricultural college will do something toward 

 remedying this. It will be a guiding light, a starting 

 point, a repository where all that is known of tillage 

 shall be embalmed ; which shall elevate the mind to its 

 proper sphere in farming ; which shall be a place where 

 men may make sure use of the experience of the past, 

 as stepping stones toward something higher. It is not 

 our purpose to enter into any argument for agricultu- 

 ral colleges, but it seems that New England with her 

 mixed crops, her soil so undeveloped and so capable of 



