Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1875-07-21
POPULAR Education and Agriculture.

culture lead at last to the inevitable conclu-
sion that a better farming must be preceded
by better system Of free schools. With all
the will in the world to make better farmers
Of ourselves, we all Of us find that We are
more or less hindered by the want of knowl-
edge, and more still by the want Of that in
tellectual training and discipline without
which all efforts to acquire knowledge, after
our school-days are over prove measurably
vain.
We want better education for our agri-
cultural writers quite as much as for their
readers One of the greatest discourage
ments TO those who would improve is the
nm certain sound that issues from those who
assume to teach. There is good ground here
for the popular contempt for g. book farm
ing" More than half Of our agricultural
writers are men who know but little, and
often nothing, about the subjects upon
which they discourse. While their science
might be accepted az genuine, their want Of
practical knowledge, plain to every thought
full and experienced farmer, rightly inspires
distrust. We say better no agricultural lit
erature than such as this, which teaches
nothing valuable itself, and casts a shadow
of obloquy over everything that is written
upon agriculture.
But with better education for the read
ors, an education that would make them
competent judges, not only Of practice, but
also of the science that underlies it, this
class Of writer's would find their occupation
gone. Then we should not hear the Just
complaint so frequently made that nothing
is settled in agriculture; that we year by
year 60 over the same subjects in tho same
uncertain way, arriving at no conclusions
that win stay concluded and reaching no
results at all adequate to the efforts put
forth for their attainment.
When we were a school-boy, Campbell's
" IIohenlinden was so worn to death upon
the school-house stage on defamation days,
that at last no boy dared to face the roar of
laughter with which the opening line,
ION Linden. when the sun wa, low"
was greeted. 1t is almost so now with "a
dozen stock subjects at our agricultural
meetings. What ridiculous, almost shameful
thing it is TO hear, as we have heard at every
meeting of the Dairymens' Association,
somebody earnestly enquiring for the cause
Of "white specks in butter And how still
more ridiculous it is to hear the diverse ex-
plantations given Of that cause by so-caled ex-
perts, as well as by the hundreds of newspa-
per writer's. There is no difficulty whatever
in ascertaining what these "white specks d"
are made Of, and no difficulty in preventing
them. This question is settled, but such is
the confusing influence Of the quaek writers
and speakers upon the public mind, and such
the inability among farmers in general to
discriminate between true and false explana-
tons, that we expect to hear the ques-
ton broached at every discussion upon dai-
rying as long as we live, unless we live long
enough to see in New England a very differ
ent system Of popular education from what
we now have.
1t is the same with the questions of corn
fodder" early and late cutting of hay
"deep blowing" surface manuring,"
"green manuring," the value of muck"
the value of liquid manure" and fifty 9th.
rs. Every well-educated farmer can easily
settle these points in his ownmind so that they
will stay settled but without education he
win be drifted about with every wind OF
doctrine, until he becomes disguised, and
contents himself to stagnate in the old way
so long as it will give him bare-very bare
support.
But notwithstanding the imperfect
sometimes scandalously imperfect teach
ings Of our agricultural journals, it is a sat
isfaction to know that they are gradually
improving and better still to know that the
sounder they are the larger is their circula.
ton. The only American agricultural pa.
pers that may be called fully reliable, be
cause competently edited in all departments
(he american Agicmiwid, the Country
Gentleman, and the Canada Farmer, have
also the largest calculations and the great
est influence The necessity for efficient ed
iting is now forcing itself upon the mana
gers of all our prominent agricultural pub
locations, and they are consequently improy
ing in n noticeable degree
This improvement is mainly due to the
increasing knowledge among farmers, Ja
not among The bulk fhe farmers rho get Meh
education solely IN our district schools. Com
paratively few Of that class of farmers take
agricultural papers at all, and of those who
do take them, very few pay much attention
TO the agricultural matter they contain. 1t
Is this which makes it necessary for the pub
fishers of agricultural papers to make them
in reality simply newspapers, with an agri
cultural department" Does the lawyer il
his 81 d,c Journal" the physician in hi,
Medical and Surgical Journal" the me
chanic in his " Scientific american, expect
to find the news of the week or does he re
fuse to take them because they are not mad,
up chiefly of love-stories and the gossip Of
the day They know better, and apprecat,
better the value of the special information foi
which they seek in these publications, thar
to desire to see their valuable space occupie,
with matter appropriate only to the dali,
newspapers or the weekly local sheets. Blu
our common farmer must have his agricul
tural reading sugar coated with the news,
aud then he generally manages to get down
the coating without swallowing the pill.
1t is to be noticed that none Of the tire,
successful agricultural journals mentioned
above give any space to news; but it is alsC
noteworthy that they can only be supported
by adapting themselves to circulation over
very wide territory, picking up few sub
scrbers in each state, and giving these bu
modicum of matter that is practically
adapted to their own parallel or meridian.
Now there are between forty and fifty
thousand farmers in Vermont, not over hall
of whom take any agricultural paper. Prob
ably not more than half of this half pay
much attention to the agricultural reading
that these papers give them, and not a
quarter ever think of such a thing as buy.
ing an agricultural book. We have visited
thousands Of faim-houses, and we can truly
say that it is an exception ever to find in
any of them a book of This descriutio,,