each shall make a sufficient aggregate to meet the object in view. The special necessity for such a system, in the case of the pursuit we are considering, grows out of the fact that there is much in agriculture which has not, as yet, taken the form of Science, and can only be acquired from practical men.

We are all familiar with the immense results accomplished by combinations of capital in commercial enterprise, in banking, in railroad projects, in manufacturing. The combination which is practicable in agriculture is of another kind-the association of intelligence and knowledge in the work of instruction, for the indirect attainment of great results in the most important of all fields of human labor.

To realize such association of knowledge we would, then, assemble from the farm, the garden, the nursery, the vineyard, and from the ranks of science, gentlemen distinguished for their skill in the various specialties of agriculture, practical and theoretic, and call on them to make each his contribution to the work of instruction. And then we would summon the intelligent and enterprising farmers of the country, young and old, to gather and learn from the most highly qualified among their own ranks, the secrets of their success. We would propose that such aggregations of knowledge, as have been suggested, should be made at as many different points in the country as the available material would warrant, and that the instruction they would furnish should be adapted as exactly as possible, in time and extent, to the circumstances of our agricultural population.

Conceive of such a plan as we propose realized and in successful operation all over our country-the great lights of agriculture emerged from under the bushels of their restricted neighborhoods, and gathered at centers such as our institutions of learning afford-the intelligent youth of the country assembled around them to kindle their own torches from the united flame, and carry them away to illuminate the communities in which they dwell; what an incalculable influence would thus be exerted upon the agriculture of our country!

In addition to the vast amount of knowledge communicated, what might we not expect from the enthusiasm which would

be inspired by the direct contact of the young agriculturist with that leaven of the highest science and the best practice to whose influence he would be subjected!

The impulse thus given to agriculture would react upon the related sciences and stimulate to new discoveries which have not yet been made, simply for want of sufficient interest in the ranks of those engaged in agricultural pursuits. Science has without doubt contributions of immense importance to make to the agriculture of the future-so great that the mere suggestion of their possibility is enough to inspire all but the boldest with scepticism as to the practical wisdom of those who venture the predictions. Reflect, for example, that the fertilizing material which we bring at such vast expenditure from the islands of the sea, exists in its elements in boundless profusion, in the air we breathe and the water we drink, and that only a few steps forward may be necessary, on the part of science, in her capacity of cheapening the processes of decomposition and recombination, to enable us to produce an artificial ammonia, and fertilize our fields from the great reservoirs of the atmosphere and the ocean. Let sceptics as to the relations of science and agriculture consider such an obvious probability as this, and perceive how the chemist, amid the fumes of his laboratory, seemingly as far removed from all work of practical bearing on agriculture as from its green fields and invigorating pursuits, may be elaborating results of incalculable value to the cultivator of the soil, and through him to the world.

Such a plan of agricultural education as is proposed, might also be employed with great efficiency in promoting systematic field experiment on the part of agriculturists themselves. Most of what has been accomplished hitherto in this direction has been, indeed, by mere random experiment. But to use the illustration of an old writer-if the sow with her snout has happened by chance to imprint the letter A upon the ground, we will not therefore imagine that she can write a whole tragedy. Isolated attempts of this nature are almost valueless. Multiplication of experiment, till it shall embrace the great variety of circumstances which may influence a result, is essential to sue

cess.

Such multiplied and systematic questioning of Nature on agricultural subjects is, at present, scarcely known. Yet there is every reason to believe that it would achieve as important results for agriculture as it has already done for Natural Science. For it, such a system, as is proposed, would furnish not alone the necessary suggestions, but the means of carrying them out in practice.

Let practical men be thus enlisted in the search for general principles, and nothing is hazarded in the assertion that agriculture would make greater progress in ten years of time than it will otherwise attain in a century.

In the plan we propose, thus developed, we should have a sort of practical realization of that fancy of Solomon's House in the New Atlantis of Lord Bacon, which had its "merchants of light," to collect and distribute the knowledge of others, its "miners or pioneers," to devise new experiments and its "inoculators who do execute and repeat the experiments so directed."

Another effect of the realization of such a system of agricultural education would be a perception of the necessity of permanent and well endowed institutions, which should carry, to a greater degree of perfection, the advantages which such a system presents. It would call forth the interest of enlightened and liberal men, and result in the establishment of Agricultural Colleges, which would offer to the enterprising young farmer as extended and liberal a course of instruction as is now pursued by the student of a learned profession.

We remark, in conclusion, that the experiment of such a course of instruction as is above proposed, in which practical and scientific talent shall be combined and which shall accommodate itself to the means and the convenience of our agricultural population, is to be made at New Haven, during the month of February next. Its success is regarded as ensured by the fact that a score or more of the leading Agriculturists and Horticulturists of the country are associated with scientific men in the execution of the plan.

ARTICLE X.-THE MORAL OF HARPER'S FERRY.

IN 1854, the passage of what is still remembered as "the Nebraska bill," marked a new era in the conflict between freedom and slavery. The original policy of the United States government, as related to slavery, declared itself in the ordinance of 1787, before the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It was reäffirmed in the first Congress under the Constitution, by enactments confirming and carrying into effect the ordinance of 1787. The States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia-then the only States that were zealous for slavery-recognized at a very early period the settled policy of the Federal government, by annexing to the acts in which they severally ceded to the Union their claims to western lands, a proviso against the abolition of slavery, or the emancipation of slaves by Congress. Thus "the territory south of the Ohio," and afterwards "the Mississippi territory," were reserved for slavery, and the States of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama became slaveholding States, not by the policy of the Federal government as administered in those better days, but in consequence of a restriction imposed upon the Constitutional power of Congress in the special compact by which the southwestern territories became the property of the Union. The first deviation from the original and statesmanlike policy of prohibiting slavery in the territories was consequent upon the purchase of Louisiana. What is now the State of Louisiana, was already occupied with a very considerable population of slaveholders and slaves; and, in the circumstances then existing, the abolition of slavery there, by the Federal power, might naturally enough be deemed impracticable. To some extent, also, slavery was already planted in that part of the purchase which is now the State of Missouri; and when a distinct territorial government was provided for Missouri, the policy of not disturbing an established in

stitution prevailed again over the policy of excluding slavery from the territories. Thus the fit opportunity for the exclusion of slavery from Missouri by Federal legislation was lost; and the attempt of 1818-19 to withhold from the inhabitants of that territory the right of becoming a State, save under the condition of their abolishing forever the slavery which already existed among them, must needs fail. But the result of that conflict was a reassertion of the old policy in a proviso incorporated with the act for the admission of Missouri as a State. That proviso, while it surrendered to slavery not only the State of Missouri, but all that part of the Louisiana purchase which lies south of the southern boundary of Missouri, was a sacred guarantee for freedom in all the remainder of the wide domain which had been purchased from France. In other words, while the compromise made no provision for the positive abolition of slavery in the regions in which slavery might be regarded as having already obtained an actual existence under French or Spanish laws, or through former neglect on the part of Congress, it pledged the public faith for the prohibition of slavery beforehand in all the immense remainder of the purchase. A very clear distinction may be drawn between the policy of prohibiting slavery in advance, where there is as yet no slavery, and the policy of abolishing slavery in a territory already inhabited by slaveholders and their slaves. To that extent, the original policy of the Federal government, in regard to slavery in the territories, was modified by the Missouri compromise. Accordingly, when Florida was transferred from the Spanish monarchy to the government of the United States, there was no attempt to abolish slavery there. A new policy directly subversive of that established by the ordinance of 1787, was attempted in relation to the territories acquired by the Mexican war; and the attempt obtained, in 1850, a partial and equivocal success. It was only in 1854, that a new system was definitely inaugurated by a repeal of the prohibition of slavery in the territories protected by the Missouri compromise.

The true meaning of the Nebraska bill, and especially the intention and effect of the clause repealing the prohibition