Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/123



the inhabitants of this town were to engage a scientific man to come and dwell amongst you, as Superintendent of Agriculture, and teach you practical farming, it is plain what purpose you would set before him, for which he must point out the way and furnish the scientific means. You would say, "Show us how to obtain, continually, the richest crops; of the most valuable quality; in quantity, the greatest; with the least labour, in the shortest time. Show us the means to that end."

It is plain what you would expect of him. He must understand his business thoroughly; farming as a science—the philosophy of the thing—teaching by ideas, and showing the reason of the matter; farming, likewise, as an art—the practice of the thing—the application of his science to your soil—demonstrating by fact the truth of his words, and thus proving the expediency of his thought.

Of course he ought to know the soil and climate of the special place; what crops best suit the particular circumstances. He must become familiar with the prevalent mode of farming in the town and neighbourhood, and know its good and ill. He should understand the ancestral prejudices he has to encounter, which oppose his science and his art. It would be well for him to know the history of agriculture—general of the world, and special of this place—