Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-11-24
III Miscellaneous
From tho Ohio Farmer,
OHIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

tIOSe announced IOf the coming NlnlCEs We udNt
al,o informed the public that the course will com.
mence on The First Of December in Cleveland and
that suitable rooms and other facilities for tho ad-
vantageous prosecution Of the various departments
OF agricultural science. have been provided 10y the
Board of Trustees in this city.
But our duty, we think does not end here We
feel that we ought to lay before all our friends,
some Of the considerations which should influence
the Farmers Of the West, indeed, tho whole coun-
,ry, to give this chool-established for their bene'
fit and dependant on them for its success--a
prompt and generous support. We do with the
more readiness because Ne have occasion to know
that our best Agriculturists are generous, as well
as wise, and that they are alive to the interests OF
science AS well as to the interests of their families
and their vocation. -.
L. We would recommend the Ohio Agricultural
College to their support, therefore, because 1t Is
the first and only Iyricaituu0l Society an Tie
United States. We are not ignorant that efforts
bt7e been made, llud able and successful ones, to
disseminate agricultural science in the United
States. Books have been published, addresses de-
iiscred, societies and lyceums organized insti-
tutes established, and agricultural departments
added to some of the institutions OF learning in
several States Of the Union. But we do not now
recolloct that any College with its own charter, and
having the Advancement Of agriculture as n science
for its sole object, is in existence in America, be
sides the Ohio Agricultural College. We know
that not a dollar has ben expended, by the very
few who have borne the entire burden thus far,
that is not needful for the successful inau g%uration
OF the enterprise. Now it is our belief that those
who at first step forward to commence this great
and needful work should m eet a cordial response
in the APPRECIATION and aid of the farming commu
nifty generally. Shall they not have it7
II. As a second argument we would urge the
fact that such an enterprise needs help more al the
outset than tchea once IL is fairy established. An
enterprise once fairly under way, generates often
its own momentum. 1t creates its own power. In
terests cluster around it. II demonstrates its pow
or to give back a full equivalent for all it takes.
But a young enterprise, though ofthe noblest aims
and confosscdiy Of the greatest utility, needs es-
pecially in our country where success is its own
bost guarantee, the help of all its friends to place
it in its best attitude before the public, and to en-
able it to prove its own power. In the success OF
the Ohio Agricultural College is wrapped up not
only the best advancement Of the farming interest
in the West for many years to come, but the sue
cess of similar schools which ought to be estab-
lished in various sections of the Union. IT this
succeeds they will be established and succeed. Let
the farmers of Ohio alone-but we hope more than
this-send but two students from each county, and
the number will be nearly two hundred. This
would be a good beginning, and would be worth
more to the College and to the interests of aaricul-
tnre in the West, than twice that number five years
hence. Let us have them then by all means now
il the time to give the school the best lift.
III. Success is certain, if the proper encourages
ment is gipen now. Let two hundred students at,
tend the full course of lectures, in Cleveland next
winter. Let them return to their farms and com
muuicate the knowledge they will gain let them
show in the several counties whence they come, by
their greater science and more delicate skill, that
they have not been taught in vain, and the desire
for such knowledge and training will become more
general and more intense. The number of students
will be greater the next year, and greater still IN
years succeeding. The people will learn that
practical knowledge is the best Of all knowledge
and that agricultural science may make their fields
Il .ho., ro1 rraator an6 THAR tnanpna lar
ger, with the same, or even a less expenditure of
toll, Let the Agricultural College then, have a
generous support noic, for that will be the best Sc
curity for its future prosperity.
w. Another grand reason why we wish to see
the Agricultural College, this winter, we'll filed By
young farmers, is that thus practical skill and
scientific culture may be most fully united. Ii
would be possible perhaps to fill the seats in the
lecture rooms with gentlemen engaged in Other
narsuits. Merchants, literary men, and gentlemen
Of leisure, might patronize the College, as we hope
they will. ThefAeisure hoursscould not surely bt
spent in a more elegant and profitable way. Blu
still the best and grandest results would fail Of at
tainment, unless the knowledge gained the coming
winter should be sown by the hand Of skill mex
spring, to be gathered next summer and autumn
10 the harvests which those advantages had rem
dered more productive. Let n large class, there
fore, of farmers and their sons attend the lectures
the next winter, that the wisest and most practica
use may be made OF the knowledge gained.
V. We wish to see the Ohio Agricultural College
well sustained, because our agriculture is still II
its youth, and it ought to gr0o up under the bes
scientific training. How hard to uproot old habits
and to overcome the hoary headed pre- udices tina
have reigned for centuries We have these tC
combat to some extent even in n new country bu
their influence is less formidable here than wheI
usage has CONCEALED upon society, into letters o
stone. If we start right, our future progress will
be easy, and our future success certain. Now it i,
so much easier to start right, vixen, as in the West
capital and labor are united in proportion so hap
~, and where our farming usages are yet plastic
that we feel a desir to which words are inadequate
that science and art should contribute their bes
light and their latest improvements, to the highes
deyelopement of Western Agricultural enterprise
Let the Ohio Agricultural College then, be well sup
ported noc, and its influence will be most power
full and benign.
VI. Another reason closely allied to the fore
going) why We wish to see this College we'll sus
tanned is, that a scientific agriculture will enable
us to keep up the fertility Of our unerhausfed soil
The history Of older countries is, in regard to thi
matter, briefly the following. Fields were crop
ped generation after generation, till land, once rlci
as the garden OF Eden, became as sterile as Sahara
Then science came and toiled for long years, til
Mt last she is gradually retaining these wasted
lands, and making the desert to wave with the vel
low harvest. Now that the unframed races whose
Ihriftless culture bequeathe6 o barren waste t.
their ~posterity, should have made this sad mistake
is to be regretted, indeed, but not greatly censured
For ignorance cannot do the work of knowledge
But it would be un pardonable for the famers o
this age, with the sad example of the past befor
them, and with the means in their reach, of avoid
ing the lamentable consequences of former errors
to allow our own soil to become sterile, and thu
to squander the rich inheritance which bounteou
nature has for uncounted centuries been laying u
for us. The farmers of oiden times sinned thong
innoeently. Their fault was their misfortune
Should we repeat the process, it would Re for us
crime. Let US then have an intelligent Agrieul
ture. And let us have a generous support for tn
Ohio Agricultural College, as one Of the bes
means for the diffusion of that science, which viii
enable this generation of farmers to bequeatl
felds Of andimiaished fertility, the marrow Q
whose fairness is still in them, to the generation
that are yet to people the great empires Of thu
West.
The Albany argus says that a gentleman in tina