POLYTECEKIC ASSOCIATION PROCEEDINGS Q^J 



one class supposes some acquaintance with the others, yet each, so 

 to speak, is independent of the rest, and has its own course of instruc- 

 tion, its own appropriate text-books, and its own recognized phice 

 among the sj^stematized and progi'essive occupations of mankind. 

 To take another illustration, the art of working in wood has shaped 

 itself into the distinct occupations of the ship carpenter, the joiner, 

 the patternmaker, and others that might be mentioned, each trade, 

 requiring its peculiai' apprenticeship, and each explained, and shaped, 

 and molded, by rules deduced from the careful study of all natural . 

 forces involved in carrying it into use or practice. From this 

 aggregation, in separate channels of talent and information, of 

 skill and experience, has resulted the steady and constantly increas- 

 ing development of the vai'ious manufacturing and mechanical 

 interests of the civilized world, a result which could only have 

 been produced by systems that, training their practitioners for well 

 defined professions, have kept them alike from neglecting knowledge 

 necessary to be acquired, and from wasting time and eflbrt in oljtain- 

 ing that which could serve them no direct and tangible purpose. 

 Yet, it is a noteworthy fact, that while every other great depart- 

 ment of human labor has been thus wrought into special parts, the 

 oldest of them all, the one which statesmen and political economists 

 have lauded for untold ages as at once the best and most useful, . 

 the one upon which the food and raiment of all civilized lands, 

 depends, has never yet been thus systematized, and exists to-day in 

 what may almost be termed a chaotic state. That in this age, 

 when machinery is found in every branch of farm operations, when 

 it is sought to yoke the same power that drives the shafting of 

 mill and factory to the plow and the seed-sower, when no project 

 seems too visionary, and no theory too daring to those who would 

 meet the wants of the tillers of the soil, there is no recognized 

 science that can justly claim the name of agricultural engineering.. 

 That the appliances of the agriculturist are for the most part the 

 study only of those whose professions have no necessary connection 

 with the work of the farm, and whose technical education includes 

 nothing of the thousand and one points of practical importance in 

 every device or apparatus designed for the tillage of the ground. 

 The writer is perfectly aware that in the old country, enough has 

 been done. in this direction to originate what is there commonly 

 known by the term we have mentioned, and to constitute, if not a 

 distinct branch of mechanical science, at least a separate division 

 of manufacturing industry. Yet, if we scan closely the progress 



