124 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
be intertwined with its leading source of wealth,) and the pro¬ 
duce of agricultural operations being as various as the climate, 
the fertility of the soil, and the skill with which it is treated, 
it will be manifest, that every additional appliance that can be 
made to improve that skill, must tend to economize labor, and 
to increase production. 
If we turn to the last report of the Superintendent of Edu¬ 
cation, presented to the Legislature, we shall find that 175,000 
children are represented to be at school in this State, and if 
we reduce that number to 150,000, so that we may be largely 
within the mark, and estimate one-third of that number to be 
boys, who will look to Agriculture as the future occupation of 
their lives, is it not wmrth while to consider w r hether the inte¬ 
rests of the State, and of the country, and of this Society, 
which is so much identified with the progress of Agriculture, 
would not be greatly promoted by making some arrangements 
in connection with the common schools, that would facilitate 
the acquisition by the pupils of a knowledge of the material 
world, and promote their disposition and power to profit by 
the improvements of others, and to become inventors also, 
wdierever they have the talent and the opportunity ? 
Let it be recollected that of this army of 50,000 boys and 
young men, of whom not more than one or two in a hundred, 
according to the present rate of attendance, ever expect to 
acquire the time and opportunity of attending a State Univer¬ 
sity, every one would be able to contribute his mite of improve¬ 
ment in his own field of labor and occupation, w r ere such 
advantages afforded to him. 
Further, let it also be recollected, that the same course of 
education which it is proposed for these 50,000 Agricultural 
pupils would be rendered equally important to those engaged 
in various arts and manufactures ; while to all it would present 
a great basis of sanitary improvement, and of that knowledge 
of the human frame, and of the material world, that must 
sooner or later be incorporated in every system of education. 
But, as we have already seen, the Agriculturalist is not only 
interested in the management of his Farm. The preservation 
