Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1855-12-01

will be greater the next year, and greater still
in years succeeding. The people will learn
that practical knowledge is the bes, Of all knowl-
edge and that agricultural science may make
their fields richer, their crops greater and their
income larger, with the same or even less ex-
penditure of toll. Let the Agricultural College
then, have generous supper, non, for that
win DO the best security ior its future prosper
| ity.
w. Another grand reason why we wish to
sec the Agricultural College, this winter, we'll
filled By young farmers, in that thus practical
skill and scientific culture may BIO most fully
united. 1t would be possible perhaps to I'LL
the seats in the lecture rooms with gentlemen
engaged in other pursuits. Merchants, literary
men, and gentlemen of leisure, might palronize
the College, as we hope they will. TIER
leisure hours could not surely be spent in more
elegant aud profitable way. But still the best
and grandesi results would fail of attainment,
unless the knowledge gained the coming winter
should be sown by the hand ol skill next spring,
TO be gathered next summer and autumn in the
haryesis which those advantages had rendered
more productive. Let large class, therefore,
Of farmers and their sons attend he lectures
the next winter, that the wsest and most prae-
teal use may be made of the knowledge gain
cd.
V. We wish to see the Ohio Agricultural
College well sustained, because our Agriculture
is sin in Us youth, and il ought 10 grow up
under the best scientific training. How hard
to uprooi old habits, and to overcome the hoary
headed prejudces that have reigned for centu-
ries We have these to combat to some extent
even in new country but their influence is
less formidable here than when usage has con
gealed upon society, into letters Of stone. II
we start right, our future progress will be easy,
and our future success certain. Now ii is so
much easier TO start right, when, as in the
West, capital and labor are being united in pro-
portion SO happy. and where our farming usa-
ges are yet plastic, that we feel desire to
which words are inadeqnte that science and art
should contribute their best light and their la
test improvements, to the highest development
Of Western Agricultural enterprise. Let the
Ohio Agricultural College then, be well sup
ported noip, and its influence will be most pow
erful and benign
vi. Another reason (close.y allied to the
foregoing) why we wish TO see this College
well sustained is, that scientific agriculture
will enable Us to keep up he fertility Of Wnor-
haustod soil. The history of older countries is,
in regard to this matter, briefly the following.
Fields were cropped generation after genera
,ion. till land, once rich as the garden Of Eden
became as sterile as Sahara. Then science
came and toiled for long years, till at last she
is gradually reclaiming these wasted lands, and
making the desert once moro TO wave with the
yellow harvest. Now that the unframed races
whose thrifiless culture bequcathed barren
waste to their poslcrity, should have made this
sad mistake, is to be regretted, indeed, but not
greatly censured. For ignorance cannot do the
work of knowledge. But il would be unpard.
enable for the farmers Of this age, with the sad
example Of the pas, before them, and with the
means in their reach, of avoiding the lamenta-
bic consequences of former errors, to ALLOW our
own soil to become sterile, and thus to sQuan-
der the rich inheritance which bonnieous nature
has uncounted centuries been laying up for u.s.
The farmers Of olden times sinned, though in
nocently. Their fault was their misfortune
Should we repeat the process, it would for US a
crime. Let US then have int lligeni agriculture.
And let US have generous support for the Ohio
Agricultural College, as one Of the best means
for the diffusion Of that science, which will Gu
able this generation Of farmers to bequeaih fields
of undiminished fertility, the marrow of whose
fairness is still in them, to the generations that
are yet to people the grea, empire of the West.