PRACTICAL RELATIONS OF SCIENCE. 113 
evince equally their sensibility to the great practical issues of 
life that are based upon it, and to the wonderful and mysterious 
powers that mark the progress of vegetation. But, however 
incomprehensible many of these may be, there is no art or 
science that can be more widely benefitted by a knowledge of 
the material world, or that more largely demands, when culti¬ 
vated with the perfection required in modern days, all the aid 
and appliances which the present times can afford. 
It is contended, accordingly, that whatever special assistance 
this Society may contemplate from a College of Agriculture, 
a Model or Special Experimental Farm, or equivalent depart¬ 
ments connected with the Lhiiversity, nothing would tend more 
to increase the development of the resources of Science in 
relation to Agriculture, than throwing open the study of 
nature, to such an extent as may be desirable to the whole 
population through the elementary or common schools. 
It is not considered that they should take up questions of 
difficulty and detail, that ought to be reserved solely for a 
special College, a University, or the Farm itself, but that the 
principle should be adopted and carried into execution, that all 
men are born with a power to understand the great and peculiar 
features of the material world, that have attracted so much 
attention in modern times, and that no department of industry 
would be more amply rewarded by such a course than Agri¬ 
culture. 
I 
In advocating the necessity of such a measure, we do not 
mean to affirm that in a new country, where the richness of 
its soil is great, and new fields may be opened when the cream 
of each has been exhausted, there may not be many who will 
prefer to pass from field to field, and farm to farm, as they 
impoverish its first productiveness. But the great body of 
agriculturists do not mean to desert their homesteads. They 
desire to cultivate them with all the care and all the appliances 
that the progress of years developes from time to time. And 
thus, while the periodical reunion of friends and strangers 
engaged in a common cause, draws in illustrations of the 
useful and the beautiful from every variety of source, an earnest 
8 
