RELATIONS OF BOTANY TO AGRICULTURE. 423 



THE RELATIONS OF BOTANY TO AGRICULTURE.* 



* BY WILLIAM S. CLARK. 



There is much reason for gratitude and encouragement in the 

 fact that the general subject of agricultural education need no 

 longer be discussed at the meetings of this Board. That good 

 mental training, some literary culture and familiarity with the 

 laws and phenomena of nature are useful to the farmer, is no 

 longer denied. That chemistry, by revealing the composition of 

 air, water, soils and manures, as well as *bf plants and animals, 

 has rendered a rational system of agriculture possible, is univer- 

 sally admitted. The chemical force, however, exerts its influence 

 principally upon dead matter, and is subordinate to that other 

 greater mystery which organizes mineral substances into those 

 varied forms of vegetation which clothe the earth with beauty and 

 furnish the indispensable food of animals. 



Baron von Liebig has said : " The scientific basis of agriculture 

 embraces a knowledge of all the conditions of vegetable life, of 

 the origin of the elements of plants, and of the source from which 

 they derive their nourishment." Professor Lindley also asserts 

 that " good agriculture and horticulture are founded upon the 

 laws of vegetable physiology;" and that " no man deserves the 

 name of gardener who is not master of everything known as to 

 the way in which plants feed, breathe, grow, digest, and have 

 their being." How astonishing and humiliating then to every 

 enlightened American must be the fact that while in Europe almost 

 every university and every large city has its botanic garden for 

 the instruction and entertainment of students and people, there is 

 not in these United States a single general collection of living 

 plants, systematically arranged and adapted to convey any ade- 

 quate idea of the wonders of the vegetable kingdom. It seems, 

 therefore, not inappropriate to devote this hour to a consideration 

 of the nature and objects of Botany, its relations to agriculture, 

 and the position it should occupy in the education of farmers. 

 The study of this science, with suitable facilities and a proper re- 

 gard' to its practical applications, cannot rfail to add immensely to 

 the material wealth, the intellectual and aesthetic culture, and 



*A lecture delivered before the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, December, 1872. 



