AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION *

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the State Horticultural Society:

I have accepted your kind invitation to speak to you this evening, not for the purpose of delivering a literary address or a treatise on horticulture, but in order to say a few things respecting agricultural education, which I think it is well for the state that I should say and say now.

You

It has been my good fortune to become reasonably well acquainted with your purposes and investigations through the annual reports which you have published, and I come before you to-night with a very sincere respect for you and your work. have taken hold of that department of agriculture which most imperatively requires special attention here in Minnesota, and which, more than any other, needs the aid of science and the teachings of experience. You have prosecuted this work with a zeal worthy of all commendation, and with a measure of success for which the entire state ought to be grateful. Many of the papers published in the record of your proceedings are worthy of careful

*An address delivered before the State Horticultural Society in the Hall of the House of Representatives at St. Paul, Minnesota, January 19th, 1887. An attempt was making at this time to separate the Agricultural College from the University.

study; and those are not wanting which show the writers to be as refined in taste and as sensible to beauty and as appreciative of the utility of beauty, as the most cultured literary artists. Such a paper is that by Mr. J. S. Harris, in the Model Farmer's Garden, in which occurs a description of what a farmer's home should be, which, if realized to any considerable extent, would add not a little to the happiness of farmers and their families. But, gentlemen, you have done much more than to publish excellent papers. But a few years ago it was supposed that Minnesota was too cold for the successful cultivation of fruit. But you thought otherwise. You experimented and persisted in your experiments when the results were most discouraging. By your wise perseverance and intelligent skill you have made Minnesota the prize bearer of the nation for excellence of apples; you have made it almost the peer of any in the abundance and deliciousness of grapes; you have made strawberries, the most luscious of all small fruits, not only plenty, but of great variety and of the highest excellence; while every table in Minnesota is a debtor to you for a variety of food produced here at home, and most conducive to comfort and to health. In the prosecution of this work the names of Gideon, Pierce, Harris, Elliot, and others whom I need not mention, have become as familiar as household words in connection with the work of this society, and as benefactors of the state.

If I can not directly participate in your counsels or assist you in your work, I can at least appreciate the value of your work. And I especially desire that, as I speak to you to-night, you shall not look upon me, with a kind of pity, as a mere theorist

who knows nothing about the mysteries of practical agriculture. It is true that even a theorist may reach his conclusions from a larger induction than the practical man, and so the geologist may be a safer guide in mining than is the practical miner. But I am not even a theorist. My early years were spent on a farm, where I became familiar in a practical way with the whole routine of a farmer's life, including what will some day be more important in Minnesota than it appears to be regarded now, rotation of crops, and the care and feeding of cattle for beef as well as for dairy purposes. I learned how to do things by doing them. I know perfectly well what a farmer's life is; what his work is; and I believe I know what his needs are so far as they relate to education and preparation for his work. This is my only justification for appearing before you at all. While I recognize the fact that the field of knowledge is too wide for any man to be familiar with the whole of it, and, while I appreciate the fact that you undoubtedly know vastly more than I about agriculture, I yet modestly hope to lead you along certain lines of thought which will pay for the time and attention which you may give me. I propose to speak upon the subject of agricultural education. I shall first notice very briefly the historical progress of agriculture. I shall then inquire what has been done for agricultural education in Minnesota, and finally I shall try to show what is needed for the future.

If we examine carefully the history of agriculture, we shall be impressed with the very great simplicity and crudeness of the agencies employed in early times to aid the farmer in his work; we shall

be astonished at the slow progress made among the Greeks and Romans, and in the medieval ages in Europe generally; and in all the world, down even to a comparatively recent time; and we shall be delighted at the rapid strides which agriculture has made in the last half century, not only in respect to machines employed to save human labor, but also in the understanding of scientific principles and their application to farming. It is noticeable that the rapid and marked improvement in agriculture dates from the time when agricultural societies began to be formed. Some of the societies formed at the beginning of the new era are in existence to-day, and it can not be doubted that the discussions and experiments of these societies have done much to bring on the age of mighty production and of systematic economy in human muscle. At all events, through the publications of these societies it has come to pass, directly or indirectly, that the world has had the benefit of all the good ideas which have been originated by observers or thinkers. This community of ideas, so characteristic of our age, is one great cause of human progress, not merely in agriculture, but in all departments of knowledge. It is no longer one man thinking for himself alone that measures the progress of the race. It is rather multitudes of men thinking for humanity-all eager to share their thoughts and discoveries with one another, and to publish them to the world. Under this stimulus grains have been improved in quality and vastly increased in quantity; fruits have been multiplied in varieties, and made better in flavor; vegetables have been made to assume unheard of proportions; cattle of improved breeds have taken