110 THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. [August 



@ LECTURE ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



U BY JOHN DONAGHY, 



Superintendent of the Glasnevin Model Farm, and Teacher of Agriculture to 

 the Commissioners of .National Education, Ireland. 



Gentlemen: — As introductory to the course of lectures which it 

 is my province to deliver during the session which is now commen- 

 cing, 1 believe I cannot select a more appropriate subject than the 

 following: — "The importance of agriculture, as one of the great di- 

 visions of labor, and the best mode of disseminating a general and 

 correct knowledge of it among those classes of the community who 

 are engaged in its daily operations." 



I look upon agriculture as one of the most important of the great 

 divisions of labor, not only because it is a primary source of national 

 wealth, but because upon its operations the existence of civilized so- 

 ciety depends. The millions of capital invested in its operations, 

 the number of persons to whom it affords employment, the blessings 

 of health which even its toiLome labors dispense, and, under iavora- 

 ble circumstances, the domestic comfort which it is capable of im- 

 parting, give to it an interest which no other business in life can 

 create. Or, in the appropriate language of Professor Hitchcock — 

 "Agriculture is the nursing mother of nations. With its prosperity 

 population multiplies, commerce and manufactures increase, all the 

 industrial pursuits of man flourish, and wealth and comfort abound. 

 On the contrary, let the cultivation of the soil in any nation be ne- 

 glected, the hum of business will be silenced, the arm of industry 

 paralyzed, and both individual and national happiness destroyed. Or 

 let the earth cease to yield her annual increase — yea, let but one of 

 her accustomed crops be cut off," and "how soon scenes of want, 

 misery, and crime ensue, constraining multitudes to abandon home 

 and country, in search of sustenance in a foreign land, or consigning 

 them, by famine and pestilence, to untimely graves. 



"This art is indeed the primitive and most important pursuit of 

 man. On its success depends the welfare not only of one nation, but 

 of the whole civilized world. Its importance can never be appreci- 

 ated until we arrive at the final results of commerce, and the other 

 great industrial pursuits which rest upon it, nor until we can obtain 

 the aggregate of those blessings which it has conferred, and is capable 

 of conferring, on the human race." # 



True, some other avocations may offer greater facilities for the re- 

 alization of profitable returns from the investment of capital: but if 

 we compare the real and substantial advantages derivable from rural 

 industry with those resulting from any other of the ordinary avoca- 

 tions of life, we shall find that he who devotes himself to the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil, is in the enjoyment of many of those blessings which 

 constitute the elements of happiness to man. 



How comes it, then, that an art which holds so prominent a posi- 

 tion in the estimation of all, and which is so indispensably necessary 

 for the well-being of mankind, has been so far outstripped, in progres- 

 sive advancement, by almost every other art! 



Many reasons have been assigned by agricultural writers for the 

 slowness of pace which has characterized the progress of agricultural 

 improvement, some of which, I admit, bear forcibly upon the point, -, 



* Report of Commis's. to Massachusets, relative to Agricultural Schools. )£ J 



109b*. ^QSM 



