710 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES IN ENGLAND. 
best advantage, of the plants from which he is to derive his 
profit, or the characteristics of those which he considers it 
necessary to destroy? In the arrangements of the proposed 
College 1 should include a botanical garden of the first 
order, as an essential adjunct, with a professor attached, and 
that the students be thoroughly grounded in the principles 
of this science. 
A knowledge of the veterinary art, and surgery, with an 
insight into comparative anatomy, would be a sine qua non 
in our institutions. How many valuable horses and cattle 
of every description are annually lost, through the ignorance 
of the farmers even of the common operation of breeding, 
and the distance they have to send for a veterinary surgeon ! 
Surely a general knowledge of pathology, or of the symptoms, 
causes, and cure of the diseases of cattle, is an acquisition 
of the first importance to one who has hundreds of lives and 
pounds sterling at stake, and who perhaps lives far from 
medical aid when required. 
Our last article is chemistry ; and as I have on former 
occasions endeavoured to urge the study of this branch of 
science upon the agriculturists, I shall not now enlarge upon 
it, further than to say that it is impossible to be a good farmer 
— by which I mean one who makes the most of his land — 
without some knowledge of it. The whole profit of a farmer, 
in fact, depends upon those chemical operations which Nature 
herself conducts, and who demands of us only an intelligent 
use of those means she has put into our hands to assist those 
operations. But we cannot make an intelligent use of those 
means unless we are acquainted with the laws upon -which 
the operations of Nature are conducted, so far as relates to 
the sustentation of her productions ; and those laws can only 
be ascertained by chemical investigation. 
I have thus briefly re-opened this interesting subject, 
which I consider to be of vital importance to the interests of 
the country, if these are at all connected with the elevation 
of one of its most important sources of wealth from a con- 
dition of general ignorance and prejudice, as an employment, 
to the dignity of a scientific and an enlightened profession. 
Hitherto science has pursued an up-stream course < commencing 
at consumption, and labouring her passage through com- 
merce and manufacture with steady progress, until, arriving 
at perfection, she has met with a barrier of stolid indifference 
and self-conceited prejudice, to surmount which has required 
the efforts, for half a century, of the most enlightened and 
scientific men of the age. Their unwearied perseverance 
has at length been crowned with signal success, and agricul- 
