538 



It is true that it is not impossible, as is shown by many noble exam- 

 ples, to live in a city, and pursue an honorable calling with commendable 

 zeal, without lapsing into or being engrossed by sordid pursuits and 

 gains, or sinking into enervating habits, or losing all moral restraints 

 in the indulgence of sensual appetites. But in the cultivation of natu- 

 ral tastes, in delightful converse with nature, and with society in its 

 simpler but not less refined state; in participating in the variety of op- 

 erations incident to the management of a farm, the mind and heart will 

 be more deeply and profitably interested. The goodness of the Creator 

 is significantly manifested in rendering that business in which the larger 

 portion of the human family will be engaged, so attractive, that it shall 

 engross the affections, interest the heart, while it requires the activity of 

 the head and the hand. 



The importance of agriculture is not to be measured by the meagre 

 knowledge that has sufficed to enable the untaught to deposit seed in 

 the earth, recognize and cherish the young plant, and pluck the fruit at 

 maturity. This is an indulgence of ignorance in favor of hfe, and it 

 requires like charity to call it farming. 



The science considered with reference to the variety and amount of 

 knowledge and talent that may be profitably employed, covers a vast 

 field. Each operator, to be master of his business, must, among other 

 qualifications, possess a knowledge of the principles, as well as the pro- 

 cess of making soils, by changing their ingredients to increase their fer- 

 tility; the power in like manner to alter their adaptations to produce 

 any given grain or vegetable, without respect to the bias of native pro- 

 ductiveness. He needs the faculty to read the language of the native 

 soils — to analyse them, and thus to ascertain their elementary compo- 

 nents, and their consequent qualities and adaptations, without recourse 

 to mere traditionary hints, or to the vague indications supposed to exist 

 in the timber and shrubbery that encumber the ground in the wild 

 state; or to the preponderance of pure earths, which have no produc- 

 tive quality until mixed with vegetable or animal remains. 



It is not my intention to epitomise the science, or even to indicate in 

 general terms the particulars of that education which is necessary to 

 make a scientific farmer. That would be impracticable in a single ad- 

 dress. The bare mention of some of the subjects having a direct and 

 important bearing upon operative husbandry, will sufficiently indicate 



