104 
it an expense which makes their old food cheap in com¬ 
parison. 
The unlucky martyr to science, or to pretended science, 
finally gives up in despair, and henceforth settles down 
into a most determined opponent of carbon, nitrogen, 
silica and potash ; they may do for those who have op¬ 
portunity to know what they really are, hut for him they 
are a kind of phantoms conjured up by book writers, to 
haunt the repose of honest, straight forward farmers. 
Our friend after all, how T ever, has yet perhaps a species 
of lingering desire towards science; he has bolted once 
from the old courses, and finds it hard to jog on in the 
beaten track as before. Suddenly he receives a new 
illumination—it is all clear now—the difficulty has been 
that he did not comprehend all of these scientific terms 
and explanations sufficiently well to know exactly what he 
was doing, and an agricultural school is therefore evident¬ 
ly the thing that is needed; here he is told, everything 
will be taught for nothing; the farmer will be a chemist, 
veterinary surgeon, physiologist, geologist, &c. &c., all 
in a few weeks, and will be able to examine and investi¬ 
gate for himself without any foreign aid. These ene¬ 
mies with hard names, will at last be brought under the 
farmer’s power; he need only go to this workshop of 
science, and he will be turned out in a few weeks com¬ 
pletely armed at all points. He will have a full com¬ 
mission to torture nature, and compel her answers to 
every question. He can return from his day’s work, and 
in place of toasting apples and cracking nuts as of old, 
will cook his own soils over his own fire, and separate 
all of their parts just as easily as cut a turnep into slices. 
Farmers will meet together in the evening, not to talk 
as now, about the markets, but to compare the proper¬ 
ties of their acids and alkalies, to speculate upon some 
new theories of vegetable physiology, and to wax warm 
in discussing the relative merits of phosphoric and sul¬ 
phuric acids. The agricultural school is to be the grand 
panacea for all difficulties and complaints incident to the 
pursuit of agriculture; when it is established, we shall 
have no more poor crops, no more unthrifty animals, 
no more worn out land; the great problem of giving 
everybody everything, seems at length likely to meet 
with a solution. Thus our friend, whom we have fol¬ 
lowed through a portion of his trials, seems likely at 
last to arrive at a satisfactory end of his labors, and to 
have pursued knowledge through difficulties, until in 
his own estimation at least, he has fairly caught it. 
For my own part, I am by no means certain that he 
has entirely succeeded,—that is in such a sense as he 
himself considers; my belief is that this school from 
which he hopes so much, will in its turn disappoint his 
expectations, as they have been so o ten disappointed 
before. He will find that even after he has graduated 
with all the honors, that crops will still go wrong, that 
manures will fail, and that he often meets with questions 
which all of his science is incompetent to answer; his very 
calves and pigs will propound puzzles of the most per¬ 
plexing character, which neither his laboratory nor his 
books can solve. 
But it will not answer to leave our friend in this con¬ 
dition. An interest in the object of his pursuit prompts 
us to offer, if possible, some alleviation to this final dis¬ 
appointment. 
Ma&ck. 
All must now see what I mean, when I speak of the 
farmer’s “ pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,” and 
although the nature of his trials may provoke a smile, 
yet they are real, and in their consequences, moreover, 
are fraught with matter of deep import to the prospers 
ty of our country. Since it is becoming popular to ex¬ 
alt science in its applications to agriculture, this depart¬ 
ment has been seized upon by many incompetent men. 
Between those who are really scientific authorities and 
those who are not, the farmer cannot distinguish; sin¬ 
cerely desirous to learn, he commits himself blindly to- 
the guidance of the nearest or first guide that is availa- 
able, or that offers, and frequently suffers severely in 
consequence. 
First, a quack propounds to him a false but dazzling 
picture of success; then some misguided enthusiast car¬ 
ries him forward to still wilder plans, and if a man of 
sense and really good acquirements, ventures to contra? 
diet either, it is at the risk of losing his reputation and 
standing among those who look at him as only on a level 
with his ignorant opponents, and who consider all scien¬ 
tific, that bear the name or assume it. 
The farmer is overwhelmed with new theories, each 
more valuable than all of its predecessors; now he is to 
use one kind of manure, and neglect all others; next he 
learns that this first is of no use, but that another is in¬ 
fallible ; one writer says that open fields and deep plow¬ 
ing are cardinal points in the rules of the good husband¬ 
man, but a second assures his reader that if he can shade 
his land enough he need care for little more. What is 
to be done? Every man of sense becomes, after a time, 
disgusted with these contradictions, and retires in utter 
despair of obtaining the knowledge which he really de¬ 
sires. The editors of our agricultural papers are not 
free from blame in this state of things; many of them 
publish, either from ignorance, or want of independence, 
every mass of crude notions that is seni them, and thus 
help to confuse, still more effectually, the plain seeker 
after truth. 
And now they have seized upon the last hope of the 
farmer, the agricultural schools, and are doing every¬ 
thing that can be done to dishearten and discourage their 
true and rational friends. I have not done justice at 
all to the ludicrous and absurd plans that are proposed, 
and the expectations held forth to our agriculturists. 
These schools instead of being as they should be, places 
where the simple truth might be taught without fear 
or favor by really competent men,—places where 
the farmers might learn the great principles of their pro¬ 
fession without being confused and confounded by half 
a score of contradictory theories, are to make thorough¬ 
ly scientific men of all that even put a head or a hand 
within their gates, and the farmer’s boy in a few weeks, 
is to do what men with hard study cannot accomplish 
in less than years. I do trust that we are not, in ad¬ 
dition to our present obstacles in the way of safe and 
certain progress, to be overrun with half educated 
chemists, mineralogists, and pretenders to science, as 
graduates from such schools. Better by far not have 
them at all, than on such a plan as will add to the many 
difficulties and perplexities which the earnest inquirer 
after knowledge is now obliged to encounter. Yours 
truly, John P. Norton. 
THE CULTIVATOR, 
