1860. 



NEW ENGLAKD FARMER. 



429 



government are not pei-mitted to exercise that 

 control over the laboring classes that it does there. 

 England has a queen, and an order of nobility ; but 

 the practical farmer is far from being comprised 

 in this latter department ; and their agricultural 

 schools are the ordinary schools for the farming 

 class, who expect to be forever so, and trained 

 expressly for that calling, with no hope or hardly 

 the bare possibility of rising into the dignity of 

 small land-holdei's, or of citizenship. I ask you 

 if the true object of agriculture is fulfilled in a 

 country like that, where, though they may get 

 greater crops than we do in some productions, 

 these crops, by the stern forcing system of large 

 capitalists, are wrung from the bodies of the thou- 

 sands of half-housed and half-famished farm la- 

 borers ? English crops, produced (shall I say by 

 human bone-manure ?) as they are, ought perhaps 

 to be regarded as disreputable to the British Isles. 

 England, probably, has more to leara of us than 

 we of her, not only in agriculture, but in politics 

 and law, and perhaps in all the industrial pur- 

 suits. English farming is not so much "capital 

 and science," as capital and oppression. 



T. — But we propose here to get the science 

 without the oppression. You are probably aware 

 that a committee of gentlemen of the Board of 

 Agriculture have given it as their opinion, that 

 if a system of agricultural education were intro- 

 duced into our common schools, in twenty years 

 "the productive value of the lands throughout 

 the whole State would be doubled." 



W. — I am ; and I have great respect for the 

 gentlemen. But it is to be very much questioned 

 whether the enlightened practical farmers of the 

 State woidd affirmatively respond to such an opin- 

 ion. Whoever has heard of the eccentric mer- 

 chant of Boston, who, one bright morning before 

 breakfast, made two thousand dollars by marking 

 all his goods higher, may have the story brought 

 to mind. 



r.— That's a joke. 



W. — Isn't the other ? 



r.— That's to be seen. But, Mr. Waddles, 

 Just think of the millions of dollars added to our 

 agricultural products if we were to succeed in 

 raising the enormous crops they do in England. 

 You must admit that now the difference is a loss 

 on our part. 



W. — Not at all. We gain it in the freedom 

 and happiness of our agricultural population. If 

 farming is ennobled anywhere, it is and must be 

 in America. If the mass of our farmers had an 

 annual rent which must be paid for their farms, 

 like the tenants of England, they might be hard 

 enough to force greater crops. But fortunately 

 they are under no such necessity. Yet of what 

 crops they do raise, they take enough to supply 

 their oivn wants, which cannot be so well said of 

 the tillers of the soil whose "science in husband- 

 ry" we are required to emulate. Surely, if Eng- 

 land is the land of bountiful harvests and fat cat- 

 tle, it is also the land of lean and disfranchised la- 

 borers. Probably agriculture may be better taught 

 to a few in Britain than in America ; but with 

 what we do teach here, we also inculcate the sci- 

 i ence of humanity, and the divine maxim, that 

 *"The laborer is worthy of his hii-e." 



r.— True. No one should shut his eyes to the 

 many laboring poor in England, and throughout 

 Europe ; but then we should only copy the good. 



W. — But of this we feel no necessity. If our 

 general system of agriculture is more productive 

 of happiness than theirs, we may not be very 

 ready to copy from them ; though, perhaps, there 

 are no important agricultural experiments institu- 

 ted in that country, which do not have more or 

 less influence in this. But the ill-defined idea of 

 establishing an agricultural college from foreign 

 hints, with a view of advancing agriculture into 

 one of the learned professions (considering the 

 little harmony and unity among those already 

 counted learned,) has always struck me as tend- 

 ing to the ridiculous. And if the working farm- 

 ers of Massachusetts were and are not similarly 

 impressed, the enterprises already started with 

 great names would not have suffered an early 

 blight. When they ask for manure, will you give 

 them a college ? "Scholars always make a foolish 

 piece of work in trying to improve that which is 

 already well enough ; and hence it is that the 

 common sense of the people will not respond to 

 them. They would "paint the lily," and "throw 

 a perfume on the violet." And they are too apt 

 to think that a man who springs up like a Bart- 

 lett or Seckel pear, and can bear good fruit in 

 any soil, is a fit subject for their influence. Wash- 

 ington and Franklin, who belonged to no learned 

 profession, -will be remembered when Adams and 

 Jefferson are forgotten. Very much depends up- 

 on the character of the man himself, as to his 

 success, whether in agriculture, or in any other 

 business. 



T. — Yes, sir ; I readily grant this ; but the 

 American farmer's knowledge, although sufficient 

 in quantity, is not systematized, and our agricul- 

 tural college or schools, I am quite hopeful, would 

 supply this great defect. Besides, such an insti- 

 tution would give tone and character to the agri- 

 culture of the State, and, properly managed, 

 would greatly redound to its honor. 



W. — I do not readily perceive how such a school 

 could systematize (rather a vague term,) our 

 knowledge, for it could only bring good sense to 

 bear on what is generally known from year to 

 year, and this every sensible man can do himself. 

 Much, however, would depend upon the charac- 

 ter of the teachers. If they, in fact, were wiser 

 than the best farmers, they might accomplish 

 something ; but it is not to be supposed that 

 practically they would be. If they were merely 

 learned in chemistry, and the collateral branches 

 of agriculture, merely theoretical, speculative men, 

 and intended to try experiments, then their ope- 

 rations would be very expensive, and of doubtful 

 utility, and they could not be regarded as repre- 

 senting agriculture in its best eclectic attitude. If 

 they inculcated what they thought the most sci- 

 entific for the time being, then their teachings 

 (so freaky and delusive has agriculture occasion- 

 ally shown itself ever since the ground was cursed 

 for Adam's sake !) would be in danger of becom- 

 ing systematized ignorance. They undoubtedly 

 would do something, and the probability is, that 

 some leading, ambitious spirit among them would 

 seize the reins, intimidate the rest by the crack 

 of his whip, and — "go it blindly." Prof. Porter's 

 ideal extravaganza of uniting the hydrogen of the 

 ocean with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, to 

 form a universal, inexhaustible, omnipresent fer- 

 tilizer, might not be realized ; the potato and cat- 

 tle diseases would probably fare no worse, and 



