Vlll AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL AND 



It is with deep regret your committee are compelled to announce 

 the mortifying fact, that agricultural science has never been admitted 

 into her literary institutions, or taught by persons qualified, by lec- 

 tures and experiments, to instruct our ingenuous youth in rural econo- 

 my. But no man of any pretensions whatever, will deny but that 

 improvement in agriculture is followed by comfort and affluence in 

 the State; and in a growing population, where cities and villages 

 rise like magic, and where invesiments in manufactures and commerce 

 receive a gratifying remuneration, an auspicious moment seems to 

 have dawned for laying the foundation of a school which will be ap- 

 propriate as well for the agriculturists as those who aspire to a 

 liberal and general course of literature. Its primary but not exclu- 

 sive object should be to impart a theoretical and practical knowledge 

 of husbandry; for melancholy experience teaches that ninety-nine 

 farmers out of a hundred are more inclined to justify and abide by 

 the course of ordinary routine than to search after improvement. 

 How few appeal to science, propose questions of experiment, and 

 search into causes? 



Among those who profess to be enlightened, thousands are igno- 

 rant of the chemical principles that are based in the knowledge of 

 the pabulum or food the plant draws from the earth on which it grows, 

 and the substances which it returns in the shape of manure. 



The physiology of plants, principles of agricultural chemistry, in- 

 volving the wide range ol manures, rotation of crops, and alternate 

 culture, have called to European Universities the most illustrious 

 teachers, who esteemed an agricultural chair, the highest of all scien- 

 tific honors. 



An analysis, showing the component parts of soils, as lime in the 

 forms of chalk, marl, gypsum, alumina, silica, iron, and the other 

 metals as exhibited in their different oxides, the various phosphate-', 

 &c., the nature and effects of humus, and its different combinations 

 with the elementary earths and the atmospheric influences, have been 

 entered in the all-glorious field of academical instruction. 



Your committee are induced to believe, that a concurrence of pub- 

 lic sentiment or at least the semblance of it, has decided in favor of 

 the establishment of a school for rural economy. At the first appear- 

 ance it would seem strange, that a population whose main pursuit is 

 the culture of the soil, should be unprovided with the means for the 

 acquisition of agricultural science, and the accessary departments of 

 learning necessary to constitute a well educated and disciplined mind. 



