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THE /SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 



thus have before us at once — in a book if 

 you please, not only A's, B's and C's me- 

 thods of cultivating corn, but the most ap- 

 proved methods of cultivating all our sta- 

 ple crops in every count}' of the state, 

 would it not be a rich mine of knowledge 

 for the farmer ? Now when we have a Pro- 

 fessor of Agriculture at our University, he 

 will discover this mine for us. He will be 

 compelled to do it in order to instruct his 

 class. He must teach his pupils all these 

 various methods of culture in every part 

 of the state. If he does not know them, 

 (as who now does ?) he must learn them. 

 Will you ask, * how can he do it ?' Nothing 

 easier. Influenced by that heroic motto : 

 " aut viam inviniam, aut faciam," he will 

 put himself in correspondence with the 

 most intelligent farmers in every district 

 of the state, who will inform him by writ- 

 1 ten communications of the methods of 

 culture known and practised in their neigh- 

 bourhoods : and he will spend the long 

 summer vacations in travelling over the 

 best farming regions of the state, learning 

 all these things and many others by the 

 seeing of the eye, and the hearing of the 

 ears. Soon he will amass, by these means, 

 a fund of knowledge which will include 

 the systems of cultivating every staple 

 crop in every section of the state. All 

 this mass of knowledge, confused though 

 it may be at first, will then be sifted, ana- 

 lysed, digested and discussed ; the differ- 

 ent modes of culture classified ; the points 

 of agreement and disagreement in them 

 collated ; what is good culled out, and 

 what is bad discarded; and the whole ar- 

 ranged for the instruction of his class. He 

 cannot teach his pupils as he ought to 

 teach them, without this labour; which, 

 done for them in the first instance, will be 

 for our improvement too. Our sons will 

 bring home a few gems from this mine at 

 the end of the first year — more the next, 

 and in a few years they will bring us a 

 share in the whole mine, neatly bound up 

 and labelled, in gold letters, " Husbandry 

 in "Virginia, embracing the various methods 

 of culture^of our staple crops in every 

 district of the state, collected, arranged, 

 and prepared for publication by the Pro- 

 fessor of Agriculture in the University of 

 Virginia." Then the knowledge we get 

 about agriculture will no longer be like 

 Jonah's gourd, which withered in a night, 

 but like the majestic oak it will send its 



roots as far downwards, as its boughs will 

 grow upwards, and gathering^ strength to 

 withstand the shocks of a thousand storms, 

 will fill all the air with its fragrance, and 

 enrich the whole land with its fruits. 



The short and the long of the matter, 

 gentlemen, seems to me to be just this — 

 our sons have to be taught agriculture; 

 shall it be done after they begin to farm 

 or before — -shall their teacher be a profes- 

 sor selected because of his fitness for the 

 work, or an overseer picked up on the 

 court-green — shall they learn the wisdom 

 of their profession only in the expensive 

 school of their own experience, dearly 

 bought by repeated failures, or derive it, 

 in some degree, from what other farmers 

 have tried and known and written — shall 

 they learn by chance, a wayward, costly 

 and often ruinous teacher — or by the sure 

 and certain method of professional educa- 

 tion which has wrought so much excel- 

 lence in other fields of human enterprise? 

 Hoping that you will decide with me in 

 favour of the regular, thorough and com- 

 plete training and instruction of our young 

 men in all the branches and science of 

 agriculture, before they begin to farm, I 

 will endeavour to show that we can make 

 provision for such instruction immediately, 

 and on a lasting foundation, by establish- 

 ing a " Professorship of Practical Hus- 

 bandry," at the University of Virginia, at 

 an expense which is trifling and insignifi- 

 cant when compared with the object in 

 view. 



However the subject of agricultural ed- 

 ucation may be new to us, it is not so else- 

 where. The greatest attention has been 

 paid of late years to the subject both in 

 England and Europe, where there are now 

 several hundred agricultural schools in 

 operation, some sustained by private en- 

 terprise alone, and others supported by 

 government. From the experience of 

 these schools, we learn the number of pro- 

 fessors required to put them in operation, 

 which we may set down at not less than 

 four under any circumstances, though in 

 the European schools it is often twice that 

 number. There would be, 1st a Professor 

 of Natural Philosophy, including geology, 

 mineralogy and meteorology; 2. Of chem- 

 istry both analytic swid agricultural ; 3. 

 Animal and Vegetable Physiology includ- 

 ing botany, comparative anatomy and the 

 veterinary art — and 4th. of Practical Hus- 



