514 



wealth and prosperity of the man or a people. 

 How then shall American agriculture and 

 American commerce be made to prosper By 

 the education of the farmer and merchant. It 

 IS a pimple answer, yet embraces vastly more 

 in detail than is discovered at a single glance. 

 How educated? This is the point of moment, 

 this is the question to solve. We have schools 

 where letters, languages, natural sciences and 

 mathematics are taught. How? Simply by 

 mechanical exercises of the mind. The teach- 

 er says, "two times two are four;" the pupil 

 repeats the teacher's stereotyped mathematical 

 assertion, until memory refuses to let go of it. 

 But he may repeat it for years and find no 

 practical use for it, or discover no practical ap- 

 plication. An apple may fall before his eyes, 

 and the teacher assures him it is gravitation 

 which causes it to fall. He remembers that, 

 perhaps, but he has learned nothing of the 

 practical effect of this force upon common ob- 

 jects with which he constantly is coming in 

 contact. Mechanics and mechanical powers 

 are defined and named ; but there is no effort 

 made to teach the value of these forces, their 

 relations to matter, and their uses. lie is 

 taught that all matter can be divided and sub- 

 'lived — that the mass becomes atomic, and that 

 different laws govern each atom — that chemi- 

 cal forces affect their union — and similar fiicts: 

 ')ut he is seldom taught this with any view to 

 practical use. It is only that he may become 

 learned, and teach others, perhaps, the same 

 profound knowledge. It is not that it may en- 

 ter into every-day life, and control and 5i,ffect 

 common farm practice. It is not intended for 

 the farmer; the man possessing it cannot af- 

 ford to hide his talents in the country. No, 

 sir! He must mystify and impress the rising 

 generation with his profundity; teach them, 

 from the professor's chair, that nature is a mys 

 tery, and faithfully impress the fact upon them 

 that "Knowledge is power!" This is the sum 

 of his duties. His brow must grow broad and 

 classical ; his locks add to bis dignity ; and his 

 puccess in gaining a reputation depends more 

 '".pon his power to pull wool over than off the 

 student's eyes. 



This is what needs the attention of every 

 philanthropist, a complete revision of our whole 

 school system. It were better that absolutism 

 could control this matter than that it should be 

 neglected longer. What misfortunes has it 

 Fiot entailed, what mistakes is it not responsi- 

 ble for — this superficial, theoretical method of 

 teaching ! If we have advanced to great tri- 

 umphs the past fifty years, what has caused it? 

 If science has effected great results, great re- 

 forms, and metamorphosed the world, is it be- 

 cause scientific men have been content to know 

 that certain forces existed? — or because they 

 sought to employ them, and succeeded ? The 

 latter is the true cause, and if we maintain the 

 Sviperiority nature has given us as an agricultu- 

 ral and commercial peop^le, it m ill be because we 



get knowledge and wake use of it. Then here 

 is another truth: knowledge is good for noth- 

 ing, unless we can make use of it — unless we 

 know how to use it. Wc want knowledge that 

 is available. 



Years spent at a college in the study of the 

 classics, at the expenditure of money and 

 health, in dissipation and inactivity, make the 

 man less a man for life, in the greater propor- 

 tion of cases. We want no such process of ed- 

 ucation for the commercial man or the farmer. 

 The first needs to learn business practically, 

 study the laws which govern trade and finance, 

 and be taught integrity, industry and frugali- 

 ty. The farmer needs to learn all this, and 

 more! The commercial man depends upon the 

 farmer for the material of traffic for which he 

 pays money or its representative. The farmer 

 depends on nature — on the earth and the God 

 of the harvest — for this material of commerce. 

 He must study the laws which govern produc- 

 tion and which insure it. The currency he 

 uses to remunerate the soil for its harvests re- 

 quires more extended resources than is usually 

 supposed. AYe must place these resources 

 within the reach of the farmer. This should 

 be the object of his education, added to proper 

 moral cultivation. — American Merchant. 



The State of New York Regarded in the 

 Light of an Experimental Farm. 



We have frequently taken occasion to allude 

 to the universal deterioration of the soil under 

 cultivation, upon the system now practiced by 

 a large proportion of farmers — that is, con- 

 tinual cropping without restoring to the land, 

 in manure, in some form, an equivalent for 

 that which has been taken from it in the crops 

 harvested and sold. 



The best farming portions of New York are 

 comparatively new. Much of it that now yields 

 the largest crops of wheat, corn, &c., was a 

 wilderness within the memory of the writer, 

 and yet with more regard to manuring than is 

 practiced by our western farmers, the yield per 

 acre is materially diminished with each reyuly- 

 ing year. A tangible illustration of this is 

 presented in the Cuuntrij Gentleman, by Dr. 

 I Daniel Lee, formerly an agricultural editor in 

 that State, but now a Professor in the Univer- 

 sity of Georgia, Athens. Dr. Lee predicates 

 his calculations upon a comparison of the cen- 

 sus returns of 1845 and 1855, embracing a 

 period of ten years, and notwithstanding the 

 advantages gained in increased crops by im- 

 proved cultivation and in the use of improved 

 implements, which it cannot be denied is very 

 great, yet the falling ofi* in the acreable yield 

 of every leading crop except rye, is alarming. 

 The census of 1855 exhibits the corn crop of the 

 previous year at only 21.02 bushels per acre, 

 on an average ; while that of 1844 yielded an 

 average of 24.75 bushels, notwithstanding 

 deeper tillage and better husbandry has made 



