37 



balancing of all these, as every farmer knows. A man who would under- 

 stand the delicate operations of farming, must know something about chem- 

 istry. The chemical operations are constantly going on in a plant. 



That brings in another science, physiology. He must know the raws 

 of life, how this or that influence will affect the growth of plants ; just as a 

 physician has to learn physiology in order to know how this thing or that 

 thing will affect the life of individual men. You have then the science of 

 physiology to be applied extensively. And so I might speak of botany and 

 physiology, which are very much concerned in agriculture, the character 

 of the soil, and a number of other sciences. 



To suppose that a man is going to be able, at the present day, with- 

 out any knowledge of these sciences, to make improvements in agriculture 

 by haphazard experiments, is, it seems to me, absurd. Now if we can 

 gain, from the establishment of a school, a little advantage at first, we 

 shall gain a great deal in time. We learn one thing after another, so as to 

 make progress. That is what is doing in Europe. They have fonnd there 

 unless they have these schools, that scientific men, who are distinguished, 

 will not attend to the matter of conducting these experiments, so that ben- 

 efit will result. The French Government have just established a school at 

 Versailles, at the old kingly domain. And this is one of the reaaons they 

 have given for it, we must have, they say, men who will devote their at- 

 tention to this subject, who will push their discoveries to get some new 

 thing, not expecting, at once, to obtain any great improvement. 



Now these principles, the principles resulting from experience, the prin- 

 ciples resulting from these sciences, can all be taught the young men who 

 go to those schools. And it takes a great while to learn them. They are 

 not applied extensively in our country, although we are making some pro- 

 gress. Only think, sir, this whole matter, the most difficult of all the arts, 

 depending upon experiments the most delicate, and influences the most po- 

 tent, for success or failure, whose dynamics, if I may so say, being such as 

 to require the most acute mind, is all left for each individual man to find 

 out. The wonder is, that the farmers of New England have done so much, 

 not that they have not done more ; because they have one of the most diffi- 

 cult of all tasks to perform. And hence it does seem to me that a school is 

 important, as one of the means for assisting in obtaining this information ; 

 not that it is going to work wonders. The people must come up to it. 



It does appear to me that the question about the establishment of Agricul- 

 tural Schools in Massachusetts, is merely a question of time after all. 



The subject has made such rapid progress in Europe, within a few years, 

 that I was perfectly amazed to find the facts develope themselves as they 

 did, one after the other, to discover such a multiplicity of facts with regard 

 to them. Gentlemen who have not seen this report will, perhaps, be sur- 

 prised when I tell them that I give there an account of 350 schools, of three 

 different grades. Though some of them have been in operation for fifty 

 years, the most have been recently established. Gentlemen there did not 

 seem to know how many schools there were. 



