BOOK FARMING. 195 



farmer has to contend. The army -worm, the weevil, and the Hessian fly leave 

 ruin and desolation in their track. Now, will not the man thoroughly 

 acquainted with the habits of these hosts of destroyers be more likely to dis- 

 cover some eiiective means for their destruction? 



It seems to me like two individuals laboring, one in the full blaze of noonday, 

 the other in the darkness of midnight. To be sure, both labor, both plow, 

 sow, and reap, but while the one is groping his way, half doubtingly, the victim 

 of frequent blunders, mistakes, and failures, the other walks with firm, unhesi- 

 tating tread to certain success. 



Chemistry has been looked upon by some as the most imjDortant of all 

 branches of an agricultural education. It is defined to be the science which 

 treats of those changes in natural bodies which take place without sensible 

 motion. Hence almost every operation which we see going on around or 

 beneath us is in obedience to fixed laws with which it is the province of chem- 

 istry to make us acquainted. All the changes which take place from the time 

 we deposit the seed in the ground till the grain is ready for the reaper, are 

 chemical changes. By these the soil we till becomes the bread we eat. The 

 stomach of every animal we fatten is a perfect chemical laboratory, in which 

 all they eat is analyzed, and each component part applied to its proper use, one 

 part becoming fat, another muscle, another bone, another milk, another wool, 

 or hair. Now it needs nothing farther to convince you that the farmer can 

 work to much better purpose with a thorough understanding of these principles. 



Again a necessity for a knowledge of animals is so obvious that I need only 

 mention the science of zoology, which imparts that knowledge, to convince you 

 that it is an important brancli of an agricultural education. So, too, with the 

 science of mechanics and a moment's reflection will show you that without at 

 least some ])ractical knowledge of it, we could not use to advantage even so 

 simple an instrument as a crowbar or a handspike. How much more, then, is 

 it ini})ortant to enable us to understand and manage the more complicated 

 implements of the farm, and to protect ourselves against fraud 

 in purchasing them. There are peddlers all over the country with all kinds of 

 labor saving machines, which do all imaginable and unimaginable work, and 

 whicli will save a fortune for every farmer who has faith enough to purchase 

 and use them, and nothing but a knowledge of the science of mechanics will 

 enable us to choose the valuable and reject the worthless. There are few 

 farmers whose i)ockets have not been bled in this way. It has been well said 

 that "farm implements are the right hand of agriculture and that the science 

 of mechanics gives to that right hand its cunning." 



But how, it will be asked, are farmers ever to obtain a knowledge of all these 

 sciences. Agricultural papers are jjlenty and cheap. There are able and 

 interesting lectures upon the subject of agriculture, plain, simple, divested of 

 all technicalities and perfectly intelligible to all readers; School district libraries 

 are within the reach of all, and if half the time spent in idle and useless talk, 

 drinking and gossiping were assiduously devoted to the proper use of these 

 means, the farmers of this country would be astonished at their progress. 



Nor does it militate against our position, that some farmers destitute of 

 scientific acquirements, ''book learning," as it is deridingly called, and ignor- 

 ant of the laws and and facts of agricultural science, are tolerably successful in 

 the cultivation and raising of the products of the soil. This fact only 

 proves that these men have undaunted energies, clear, strong heads, sharp and 

 discriminating judgments, and a kind of intuitive perception of the principles 

 of science. They know more than we may imagine. They do not clothe their 



