society,
as well as of the individual producers. Thus a healthful and generous
rivalry would be stirred up between the towns of a county as well as
among the citizens of each town; and a county exhibition upon the plan
suggested would represent at one view the general condition of
agriculture in the vicinity. No one can pretend that this is
accomplished by the present arrangements. Moreover, the county society,
in its management and in its annual exhibitions, would possess an
importance which it had not before enjoyed. As each town would be
represented by the products of the dairy, the herd, and the field, so it
would be represented by its men; and the annual fair of the county would
be a truthful and complete exposition of its industrial standing and
power.

Out of a system thus broad, popular, and strong, an agricultural college
will certainly spring, if such an institution shall be needed. But is it
likely that in a country where the land is divided, and the number of
farmers is great, the majority will ever be educated in colleges, and
upon strict scientific principles? I am ready to answer that such an
expectation seems to me a mere delusion. The great body of young farmers
must be educated by the example and practices of their elders, by their
own efforts at individual and mutual improvement, and by the influence
of agricultural journals, books, lecturers, and the example of
thoroughly educated men. And, as thoroughly educated men, lecturers,
journals, and books of a proper character, cannot be furnished without
the aid of scientific schools and thorough culture, the farmers, as a
body, are interested in the establishment of all institutions of
learning which promise to advance any number of men, however small, in
the mysteries of the profession; but, when we design a system of
education for a class, common wisdom requires us to contemplate its
influence upon each individual. The influence of a single college in any
state, or in each state of this Union, would be exceedingly limited; but
local societies and travelling lecturers could make an appreciable
impression in a year upon the agricultural population of any state, and
in New England the interest in the subject is such that there is no
difficulty in founding town clubs, and making them at once the agents of
the government and the schools for the people.

In the plan indicated, I have, throughout, assumed the disposition of
the farmers to educate themselves.