Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-12-22
Connecticut.

Connecticut, mother OF vermont, IS rather
a manufacturing than farming state, yet
agriculture receives there more care from
the state than elsewhere in the Union. Con-
necticut has the most effective board of ag-
riculture and the only effective agricultural
experiment station under state authority
that exists on the continent. Any one who
looks into the administration of agricultural
affairs in Connecticut will find that there
exists a yigor and activity combined with
hard, practical sense, and yielding tangible
practical results, far ahead of any other state.
When we ask why it is thus we shall find an
answer only in the fact that the leading
farmers of the state, the men Of science, the
educational institutions, and the governing
elements generally, desire that agriculture
should be fostered and advanced The
"common farmer" there, as in Vermont,
has not believed sufficiently in "book-farm-
ing,"-in science applied to growing crops
to be very willing to be taxed for the pro-
motion of such purposes. But the cultivated
brains Of the state, inside and outside of ag-
ricultural pursuits, have agreed that science
must be made to help farming. They have
been willing to spend the few thousands
needed annually to promote that end, and
the representatives of ignorance have not
been able to hinder their purpose. Here in
Vermont it has been different in every way.
Our best farmers have been too well con-
tented to read and study for themselves
without the effort to face frowning world
in behalf of improvement. Our leading ed
ucational institutions are still as devoted TO
ancient learning as though the dimness of
the seventeenth instead the blaze of the nine
teenth century were about them. Our poll
ticians are "scared to death" for fear that
agricultural meetings should develop rivalry
to their interests among the farmers, and
that the governorship, and even our congress
sional seats, might come to be filled by farm
ers. The great mass of the farming class
are inert, backward and stubborn in opposi-
ton to any measure that might increase the
state taxes a few cents per head, while at
the same time they allow their representa-
tives to waste ten times as much in other
directions. Altogether there is a bad out
look here for any sort of effective state aid
to our greatest interest
In our good old mother state it is just the
other way. Everybody seems willing to
give good farming lift there. Having es-
tablished board of agriculture, the legisla-
ture leaves it to do its work, without
tinkering, remodeling or endeavoring to
abolish it at every session, as has been done
in Vermont. The board itself is ably man
aged, and having been lucky enough to Sc
lect in the beginning first-class man who is
a practical successful farmer for its secre-
tary, it has had the gumption to keep him.
The thirteen successive volumes of his Re
ports, which we have upon our bookshelves,
constitute in themselves an agricultural H.
brary which treats exhaustively nearly every
leading topic of farm knowledge applicable
to New England agriculture. The plan
upon which Secretary Gold has worked
from the first is to discuss only one topic at
each meeting, assigning the different
branches of it to different individuals ac-
cording to their practical acquaintance with
each. The result, as seen in the Reports, is
compendium of all knowledge on the sub
ject discussed, and together, an encyclo-
p@dia of practical and scientific agriculture
thoroughly adapted to the wants of Connec-
ticut farmers.
Secretary Gold has sent us the programme
of his winter meeting to be held at New
Britain, December Is, 10 and II, at which |
the subject under discussion will be agricul- |
tural education, or, as he puts it, " What |
the Farmer Ought to Know, and How he |
may Learn It," The ablest men of Connect |
lieut. and other states are to address this |
meeting. Professor Northrop (state superin-
tendent OF education, we believe,) lectures |
upon "What Should our Schools do for Ag. |
riculture ?" That bright young Vermonter,
Professor Atwater of Wesleyan University |
treats the question, " How to Develop the |
Rational Side of Farm Life and Practice"
Professor Beal (of one of the successful |
western agricultural colleges, we think,) |
discusses "Our Schools of Agriculture" |
DIR. Sturtevant of Massachusetts, gives his |
"Thoughts on Agricultural Education"
Professor S. w. johnson, the first agricu- |
tural chemist and teacher in the world, de- |
livers an address on Systematic Agricul-
tural Education as Adapted to the Amer-
can Farmer" Professor w. II. Brown, who
has few equals in knowledge of agricultural
science, treats of agricultural Societies
and Exhibitions" These are only a por-
ton of the rich treat in store for those who
will have the good fortune to be present.
Secretary Gold, Professor Greasy and others,
will speak upon topics of equal interest. We
shall wait for the report of this agricultural
symposium with the expectation which
attends what must be, we think, the great
est event in the interest of good farming
that has ever been in America.