Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-05-13


may be the present idol of devotion, all classes
and ranks OF men hope to reach that estate
first bestowed upon Adam, and become propre-
tors OF the soil as their ultimate earthly paradise
| Washington, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, are
more secure of love and homage as farmers
than even as men Of highest public renown
and Mount Vernon, Fort Hill, Ashland, and
Marshtied, the Meccas Of America, prove the
ideal truth of the words of Pliny, that !" the
earth took delight in being titled by the hands
OF men crowned with laurels and decorated with
triumphant honors.
Many of the purest embellishments of litera-
ture have been drawn from the field OF the hus-
bandman. Gems, not only of pocsy and song,
but of painting and sculpture, of philosophy
and eloquence, thus have their origin. Let az
riculture, then, make its reprisals, and build
up literature N once ineligible and satistac-
tory for its millions of thinkers.
We need careful, exact and systemized reg
| lstration of experiments-such rs can be made
at thoroughly scientific institutions, and such
as will not be made elsewhere. These tests and
these tables, so furnished, will give us, when re-
ported and collated, as is provided for in this
bill, a rational Induction of principles upon
which we may expect to establish proper sci
cnce (; and the more widely gathered are the
facts, the sounder the science The discoveries
of Colnmbus-struck amateurs will not be trum-
peted forth until they have received the sane
ton of a body less sanguine than the vendors
of a patent. Spurious dogmas will be touched
lightly with the spear of Ithuriel, and no lon
ger squat around the ears of weary plowmen
We need to test the natural capablity OF
soils and the poweT.of different fertilizers the
relative value of different grasses for flesh, tat,
and milk-giying purposes; the comparative val
ne of grain, roots and hay, for wintering stock
the value of bushel of corn, oats, peas, car
rots, potatoes, OF tGrnips, in pounds OF beef
pork, or muttdp :,.deen blowing as well as
drainafsse s;7.--4ktsTSsgy asd deterioration OF
Seeds breeds ofanTdials; remedies for the po-
tatoe disease and &s all tribes of insects de-
structive to cotton, wheat and fruit crops
These, and many more, are questions OF sclen-
tifc interest even beyond their economical i'm
portance in the researches of the agriculturst.
The philosophy If manures, or OF giving
plants their appropriate food, is IN ats infancy
In England they have, through the process of
feeding wheat, raised the average yield to
double its former amount Liebig employed
in 1910 by the Royal Agricultural Society," was
almost the first, after Sir Humphrey Davy, to
practically apply agricultural chemistry so as
to arrest the attention of farmers. 1t was at
this suggestion, only seventeen years ago. that
guano was brought into notice. In 1851, not
outstanding its extravagant price, England i'm
ported two hundred and forty-three thousand
and fourteen tons of this concentrated fertilizer
proving that the tabled eggs of the golden goose
have been eclipsed in va1ue by the 90 excavations
of sea-gulls."
1t is plainly an indication that education is
taking step in advance when public sentiment
begins to demand that the faculties of young
men shall be trained with some reference to the
vocation to which they are to be devoted through
life 1t is clear that intellectual discipline can
be obtained under more than one mode, and, if
the primary education sought for this purpose
can be afterwards applied to practical use in
the destined occupation, it is point clearly
gained. Law, theology, and medicine, have
been specialities from the time whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
Special schools for art, trade, and commerce,
though of later growth, have been long cstab-
lished in many places throughout Europe, and
in our own American cities In some places
these institutions, intended to be practical
rather than speculative, 60 by the not inapt
name of Real Schools. Agricultural colleges
and schools in many portions of Europe are a
marked feature of the age. In our own coun-
try the general want of such places of instruc-
ton has been so manifest that States, societies.
and individuals, have attempted to supply it,
though necessarily in stinted measure. The
"plentiful Lack of funds has retarded their
maturity and usefulness but there are some
examples, like that of Michigan, literally sup
ported bv the State, IN the full tide of success
full experiment. Adequate means TO start on a
scale commensurate With the great objects in
view seems an indispei{ Fable sssArlqusito. States
have been unable to IMPOSE at oice the ncreas-
ed taxation that would be required, and the
liberality of private individuals has been I'M
equal to the task. But if this bill shall pass,
the institutions of the character required by the
people, and by our native land would spring
into life, and not languish from poverty, doubt,
or neglect. They would prove Gf they should
not literally, like the schools of ancient Sparta,
hold the children of the State) the perennial
nurseries Of patriotism, thrift and liberal in
formaton--placcs 'where men do not decay. :"
They would turn out men for solid use, and
not drones. 1t may he assumed that tuition
would be free, and that the exercise of holding
the pillow and swinging the scythe-every whit
as noble, artistic, and graceful, as the postures
of the gymnastic or military drill-would go
far towards dcfraying all other expenses of the
students. Muscles hardened by such training
would not become soft in summer or torpid in
winter; and the graduates would know how to
sustain American institutions with American
vigor.
1t is desirable that the agricultural hive in
all its industrial ramificahons, should furnish
such generous rewards, such noble incentives,
as to reclaim the truants who have fled to and
clog and embarrass other pursuits and profess
ions with unframed adventurers. The New
York Mercantile Agency states the number of
stores in the United States at 204 ,06l. which
would be about one store to every one hundred
and twenty three inhabitants. This shows
''Trade wields the sword and Agriculture leaves
Her half-turned burrows; other harvest fire
An avarice of ren0wn."
suppose that it might be a fair estimate to
say that eighty out of every hundred of these
traders become insolvent every ten years. But
had they invested their capital and labor in ag-
riculture, it may be safely assumed that not
twenty out of every hundred would have failed
to secure competence.
CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.
BIG Hoe -Editor Fireman.: Samuel S.
Slayton of Stowe killed, on the Sd inst, the
largest hog ever slaughtered in Lamoille County.
1t weighed eight hundred and eighty-one
pounds! This hog was purchased by Mr.. Stay
ton one year ago last December. 1t weighed
at that time abont- ~ hundred and fifty
pounds, and was 81 alr Itisbed, but beautifully
proportioned 1t Was kept in the ordinary way
having no grain till ABOUT the first of Deem
Der last. Since then it has been fed regularly