18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ous, to the earth. Those generations cannot live on curious 

 machines, or mighty inventions, or great learning. They are 

 to be clothed and fed from the very same soil which we now till. 

 There will be a time when no more territory can be annexed to 

 the domain of civilized life, and no more rich prairies of Kan- 

 sas will remain to be wrangled about, and then the generations 

 of men,Avitli all their learning and ingenious contrivances, with 

 ships crossing the Atlantic, for aught I know, in an hour or 

 less, will, no doubt, be born with mouths to be fed and bodies 

 to be nourished and clothed. And as God will not see fit to 

 make a " new earth " to atone for any misuse of its properties, 

 it becomes mankind to set about keeping this one as good as 

 netv, to say the least, fie has given to us this garden of rich 

 bloom and abundant harvests, to till and to dress ; to be sub- 

 dued, but not to be despoiled. 



Agricultural chemistry will afford one of the means to the 

 true end. In nothing is scientific research greater than where 

 it analyzes results into elements in order to assist in reproduc- 

 ing those results in more complete consonance with the true 

 laws of production. And we have been greatly aided in this 

 direction by the labors of able men. Their results are before 

 the world. But to how many are Liebig's Agricultural 

 Chemistry, or Liebig's Chemistry of Food, or Dana's snug 

 little Muck Manual, with a nimibcr of similar treatises, all 

 aiming in different ways to derive what is necessary from the 

 soil without robbing it of its capacity, — how many of these 

 will you find familiar hand-books, even among the members of 

 a society like this, established for just such a use ? I shall not 

 presume to answer the question. Happily, the weekly news- 

 papers are doing some good work in this direction ; but they 

 Avould do much more if our farmers would give their heads 

 more employment, not to save their hands from doing work, 

 which seems sometimes to be an object of agricultural inquiry, 

 but from doing mischief. 



If it is the particular business of the husbandman to furnish 

 to the world the resources of material life — and all the trade and 

 commerce of the world must hinge on this — it ought to be as 

 much his care to leave his acres entirely unimpaired in their fer- 

 tility. Even if his descendants could ever reclaim the wasted 

 fields, it is scarcely honest to leave to posterity such an incum- 



