which cannot be cultivated even imperfectly without yielding valuable fruit.

The assistance which the State at present renders towards the advancement of agriculture is essentially of an educational character. She encourages Agricultural Societies which draw forth and exhibit improved breeds of animals, improved implements of husbandry and hold them up for imitation and for instruction. They also encourage improved methods of cultivation by offering inducements of honor and profit, in the premiums awarded therefor. By these means knowledge is diffused as well as emulation excited.

The sessions of the Board of Agriculture are intended to subserve the same end, by bringing together a body of men supposed to be most deeply interested in its progress, by their discussions of the ways and means of securing advance and by the interchange of views and experience. The power of the press is also enlisted, and contributes by scattering abroad over the State its annual reports.

These means, although they are intended and adapted to operate chiefly upon adults already actively engaged in agricultural pursuits, and include no direct instrumentalities for imparting instruction to the young, are not without considerable efficacy, and they may serve a preliminary and necessary purpose by the introduction among all classes, of such enlarged and enlightened views regarding methods or institutions for promoting agricultural education, as shall, in due time, lead to their adoption or establishment. One is sometimes tempted to wonder that its necessity has not been sooner felt, and the want supplied. Even an old Roman writer, amid the martial condition of a proud and heathenish empire, had the sagacity to perceive its paramount importance and the honesty to utter his astonishment at its neglect. Nothing equals my surprise," says he "when I consider that while those who desire to learn to speak well, select an orator whose eloquence may serve them as a model; while those who are anxious to dance or to become good musicians employ a dancing or music master; in short that while every one looks for the best master in order to make the best progress under his instructions, the most important pursuit next to that of wisdom, has neither pupils nor teachers. I have seen schools established for teaching rhetoric, geometry, music, dancing, &c., but I have never seen a master to teach agriculture nor a pupil to learn it."

To the question, which in one form or other, has so often been propounded for solution at the sessions of our Board, viz: "What further means can be adopted for the promotion of agriculture?" a very brief and comprehensive answer might be given. Educate the farmer. His education it is true, may never be finished at any school of man's making, but the youth may, at least, be taught to appreciate the value and to feel the necessity of a knowledge of the principles which alone can safely guide his practice. He may be taught how to commence study, so that, afterwards, while his bodily powers are engaged in daily toil in the great laboratory of nature whence his support is derived, he may, with only the aid of his own trained and developed faculties, mentally prosecute scientific investigations which will yield both profit and satisfaction.

The diffusion of knowledge is the only practicable method of securing progress; says the celebrated Robert Hall, "all attempts to urge men forward, even in the right path, beyond the measure of their light, are impracticable if they were lawful, and unlawful if they were practicable. Augment their light, conciliate their affections and they will follow of their own accord."

It is hopeless to attempt the extension of improved methods of practice in agriculture until farmers either feel their necessity, or in some good degree apprehend the grounds upon which they are presented and the reasons which exist why beneficial results may be anticipated. It is safe to predict that agriculture will advance just in proportion to the intelligence of those engaged in it.

JANUARY, 4th, 1860.

S. L. GOODALE,

Secretary of the Board of Agriculture.

APPENDIX.