We think we must first look to the elevation of the common school where every boy is expected to lay the foundation for all his future success in life. It is a fact, that any boy can acquire sufficient knowledge of arithmetic, grammar, geography and penmanship in the common school, at the present day, to prepare him to pursue any special branch of study to fit him to be a scientific farmer. Now how shall he know something of chemistry? In almost every town, there is a high school, or academy, at least, one term in a year; and for the want of something better, let the young man attend to the study of the elements of chemistry for one term only, if not convenient to remain longer, and he can after that, be his own. teacher if he will.

The intelligent and successful farmer must be a constant learner. The lawyer, who lays aside his books, is soon out of practice; the physician, who is not posted up in every new improvement, will soon be outstripped by his competitor; and so will the shrewd farmer at the present day find it equally necessary to catch at every new mode of cultivation, every new implement of real value, and new principle advanced.

With this spirit of inquiry he becomes a reader, and a thinker. He is thereby stimulated to exertion.

But farmers want models before them.

It is said, that the late Professor Cleveland, when he entered on his duties as professor at Bowdoin College, did not know one mineral from another. A small box of rocks picked up by him, and sent to a neighboring college to be labelled, was the first and probably the only direct instruction on the science from teachers which he ever received, yet he acquired a world wide renown in that science. The reason is this. He had made a beginning in the science, and then could pursue it alone.

Many a farmer will express a wish to become acquainted with chemistry. He buys a work on that subject, but it is all a sealed book to him, and he throws it down in disgust. Now he needed a little instruction from some friend in order to give him a start, and then the whole difficulty is overcome. We need good models in everything. A model farmer influences all around him. If we had good teachers in everything, we should all be better scholars.

The practical farmer is in a scientific and practical school when he frequents the farmer's club.

Perhaps there is no agency so effectual towards stimulating farmers as this humble one. Practical, common sense men can then educate themselves in almost everything.

Another step not yet sufficiently noticed, is a small agricultural library in every farmer's home. farmer's home. Almost any man can lay out five dollars for provender for a favorite horse without any difficulty, to whom five dollars expended in books would look frightful. Five dollars judiciously expended in books will, if carefully studied, make a learned farmer. Let the farmer purchase Browne's Book of Manures, a Fruit Book; one on the Diseases of Animals, another on the Breeds of Animals, one on Agricultural Chemistry, the simpler the book, the better. With these books, together with his agricultural papers, State and Patent Office Reports, and other matter pertaining to his calling, he will become the high minded, intelligent and successful farmer.

As preliminary to the establishment of agricultural institutions, might be mentioned a course of lectures to farmers, delivered in a plain, simple manner, by a competent person, in such a way as to induce the formation and support of the farmer's club. As the presence of a few minerals gave Professor Cleveland a stimulus to prosecute successfully his favorite study, so the presentation of the simplest truth, in the form of lectures, will excite many a young farmer to pursue the study and practice of scientific farming.

It is believed that a work on Agricultural Chemistry more simplc in arrangement than most of those now in use would be of utility to the great mass of that class of farmers who have within them the spirit of inquiry, but whose early advantages of education have been more limited than are enjoyed at the present day.

Your committee believe it as necessary for the farmer to be as thorough in his profession as that of any other occupation to ensure complete success. The house carpenter, who becomes complete master of his trade, and knows how to draft his work, is sure of a higher compensation than he who knows nothing but to follow anothWhether we acknowledge it or not, "knowledge is power,' and the greater our knowledge of our calling, the greater our influence and command over the minds of others. In other occupations it is presumed that the individual is already acquainted with his subject before he comes before the public; then why not the farmer?

er.

Your committee wish now to express their convictions in regard to an agricultural school as a means of advancing the cause of agriculture. That the time will come when such a school will be established in Maine, your committee entertain not a doubt; but it will, if successful, be a model school for the few, who shall be the teachers of the many. Your committee are of the opinion, that measures to elevate the condition of our primary schools should precede that of an agricultural college. In due time, such an institution will be an efficient aid to the scientific farmer.

Could some better arrangement be made by which a portion of the public money expended for primary schools should be devoted to the special study of the higher branches by young men, it might be one step in the right direction towards a thorough education of farmers.

Finally, your committee express the opinion, that the farmer should, first of all, learn to respect himself, and he will soon secure the respect of every other class of society; and it will serve to elevate him, to that social rank in society which he really deserves. Let him educate his body, mind and heart, so that when the body begins to fail, his intellect will still be active, and when that too, begins to wane, he will still have a warm and well cultivated heart beating within the walls of his breast, to sustain and cheer him in the decline of life, and prepare him for a peaceful rest and a blessed immortality.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

N. T. TRUE, Chairman. The report as above was adopted. It embraces several alterations which were made by the chairman, after discussion by Messrs. Wasson, Flint, True, Anderson, Martin, Porter, Goodale and others; and so much as referred to the establishment of a model farm upon the lands connected with the State Reform School at Westbrook, was stricken out.

Mr. Anderson, chairman of committee on third Topic, reported as follows:

Your committee on Topic No. 3, have given it attention, and report that farmers are not to hope for success without bestowing upon their business such attention as warrants the hope of success in other branches of business. But while this is the reply to the

question submitted, your committee ask leave to go a little further and state that, from the observation of its several members, a belief is entertained that most farmers of the state, who hope for success, seem to expect it to come to them not only without careful attention to their especial business, but with their attention divided and distracted by everything and anything outside of their farms which comes under their notice; and they continually suffer these outside things to infringe upon the time which they, as reasonable men ought to devote to their farms.

Your committee do not here intend to reflect upon the ability, nor general intelligence, nor shrewdness of the farmers of the state; for it is believed that most farmers, although they may hope for sucess, have but little faith in its attending their farming operations; which appears to be manifested by the great readiness with which they seize upon weak promises of pay elsewhere; by their almost universal neglect of the farm when they have capital to invest; by the little interest they take in studying up the best methods of doing all the different kinds of farm work, when compared with what they manifest in any speculative scheme, or in the political movements or wire pulling of the day; by their want of zeal in their own cause and their evident general disinclination to go into it with their heart and their strength; and their unwillingness to seek scientific knowledge from the matured reasoning and practice of minds leading in the direction they ought to pursue. It has suggested itself to the minds of your committee to delineate, each one for himself, from his own personal observation in those farming communities where he is best acquainted with the actual condition of things, the picture presented by imagining the mechanics and manufacturers, the merchants, physicians, lawyers and clergy of Maine giving to their respective callings just the attention,—and no more,-that the farmers of Maine give to their calling: the merchant confining himself to the limited custom of his own town, and thinking only of turning the odd half and quarter cent to his way of the trade; the manufacturer constantly neglecting to allow his, or another's invention to aid him to new machinery; the minister of the Gospel refusing to study any works of others because he might thus be accused of obtaining his ideas from books; the mechanic working on by hand as his father worked and scorning steam as a motive power; the

lawyer practicing only upon decisions of his own court and contenting himself with, what is now called, the dirty work of his profession; the physician unheeding all ancient and modern discoveries of his science and practicing upon the prescriptions of his sire. And this picture resolved itself into a series of dissolving views representing listless men at slovenly work upon badly proportioned, ill designed structures of all sorts and kinds; useless fabrics in unsaleable heaps with a confused medley of charlatans, quacks, pettifoggers and pulpit politicians. And then from these depressing views, the minds of your committee, acting and reacting upon each others thoughts, came back to the real life of today and observed and reflected upon the position in society which these lawyers, doctors, ministers, merchants, manufacturers and mechanics really do hold, and it seemed to be very clear that their success was owing to their constant and undivided attention to their business; to their true faith in it, and towards it; to their instantly seizing upon every means and appliance to onward progress; to their determination to fathom and put in requisition every resource within their reach. And reflecting still that the very existence of these lofty lords of society depends entirely upon these lowly tillers of the earth, with all the want of earnest undivided attention which the farmers of today yield to their avocation-the grandest art and profession of all, because the most important of all. Your committee feel impelled to urge upon those who, by farming, now accomplish so much and labor so little, to apply all their mental and physical energies to conducting the business of their farms; they should not only have a theoretical but a practical knowledge of the best modes of raising and feeding live stock, making and applying manure, draining and tilling the ground, and of the plants best adapted to the different kinds of soil, and they should give close, earnest, zealous personal attention to their business; and acquiring faith in their own peculiar occupation show faith in works, and so make their own success and consequent promotion sure.

This report elicited a somewhat animated discussion. The secretary remarked, that for some years past he had seen and conversed