226 ANDROSCOGGIN COUNTY SOCIETY. 



A successful farmer must be a student, and practice upon what 

 he learns. To this end, he must be somewhat acquainted with 

 scientific facts. The science of chemistry is essential, in order that 

 he may labor intelligently. You cannot raise a crop, nor employ a 

 fertilizer, that does not involve chemical principles. The bread you 

 eat, the butter your wife makes, the hot-bed in your garden — if you 

 have one, and if you have none, it is time you had — all involve 

 some principle in this science. It teaches the value, qualities, na- 

 ture and application of manures — what will best suit one kind of 

 soil, and what another kind ; what crops will be best adapted to the 

 soil of one field, and what to the soil of another. We hear bitter 

 complaints about scanty crops, and that farm- work don't pay — but 

 you cannot gather grapes from thorn-bushes, or figs from thistles ; 

 if you can, the roadside will be the best harvest field. Allow me, 

 with kind intention, to ask, if you have ever made the subject of 

 adaptation of certain soils and manures to certain crops, a subject 

 of earnest inquiry and study. If you have not, do not complain of 

 your land or meagre crops — they are not in fault. 



An acquaintance with those physiological laws, upon which the 

 life, health, and groAvth, of all animal and vegetable life depend, is 

 essential to success. By this science we learn that like produces 

 like ; that the best produces the best in the vegetable kingdom, and 

 that the soundest and most symmetrical produce the best and most 

 valuable in the animal kingdom. And both observation and experi- 

 ence unite to teach us, that it is cheaper to raise a good crop, a good 

 horse, or ox, or sheep, than a poor one. 



There is one other "ology" to which I would direct attention, 

 •Entomology, or that science which opens to our wonder the insect 

 world, is by no means unworthy the study of the farmer. How 

 many crops, at first promising well, have been ruined by insects. 

 Sometimes the fruits and crops of an entire region of country, are 

 swept away, and no hand is intelligently raised to stay back the 

 desolation. What startling revelations arc presented to us through 

 the microscope? It is said by those studied in these things, that in 

 the compass of a mustard seed, there are eight millions of distinctly 

 formed insects or animalcula3. Counting at the rate of one every 

 second, it would require the service of twenty thousand men for 

 forty-four years — twelve hours each day — to number the living 



