9 



My confidence, however, goes far beyond what is estab- 

 lished or even claimed for science in its relations to practical 

 agriculture. I now see what in the beginning I did not see, 

 that the apparent value of the Agricultural College will be 

 greater in the region of scientific discovery and invention, and 

 their application to practical agriculture, than in the prepara- 

 tion of young men for the management of farms. The latter 

 idea was the English and continental idea, and in the beginning 

 it was the American idea ; but the indications are that the 

 advantages will be more largely in a quarter which at that 

 time was not much considered by most of us. 



I have recently returned from central New York, where I 

 was assured by persons of respectability and information that 

 the advantages of the investigations and teachings of the 

 professor of the Cornell University, in the department of the 

 dairy, would far exceed the cost of the Agricultural College. 

 These are the beginnings, and we may safely prophesy that 

 the agriculture of the future will be, in its main and most 

 profitable branches, only a system of applied chemistry. 

 This does not imply that every farmer is to be a chemist, nor 

 indeed that any farmer need concern himself with the science 

 at all. But as every farmer will be called to consider the 

 value of the science in its applications, it will follow that 

 many, and especially many young men, destined to engage 

 in agriculture, will become interested in and students of the 

 science. 



The knowledge of a valuable thing is of the first importance, 

 but second only is its diffusion among those who can derive 

 advantage from it ; and especially its diffusion in an author- 

 itative and a responsible manner so as to command the 

 confidence of those who are concerned in its application. 

 For the most part farmers have neither the disposition nor 

 the means to try experiments, and they have so often been 

 the victims of imposition that they are suspicious of new 

 projects and they hesitate to engage in new undertakings. 



