58 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ful activities than the range of the fields ? Where find fitter 

 aliments of vigor and enlargement ? Where richer furniture ? 

 Where the excitements of happier emotions ? Where the 

 topics of i mrer and loftier thoughts ? 



Well founded are the arguments of a learned divine, drawn 

 from man's alienation from nature in proof of the fall, and 

 sound was he, philosophically, if not theologically, when he 

 pronounced a scientific knowledge of her, an efficient auxiliary 

 to restoration. Who examines her and meets not the foot- 

 prints of the Creator, not only among the rocks, as did the 

 keen-eyed Miller, but in the garden, the grain-field, the 

 meadows, the pasture, the forest-foliage. Who sees not God 

 in the clouds — does not hear him in the wind? Not the 

 untutored Indian's god of dark visions and unintelligible 

 utterances ; but the Christian's God, conspicuous and vocal in 

 the ordinations of His wisdom. 



It may be claimed that leisure is necessary to the investiga- 

 tions suggested. It is conceded that leisure comes of wealth 

 only. It may be so, where the calls and professions of fashion- 

 able life make excessive drafts on time and income. Few only 

 most certainly have leisure to pursue them indefinitely, but 

 many to a liberal and more to a limited extent ; and in these 

 days there are very few intelligent cultivators who are without 

 the elements to start with. The means and facilities for trying 

 expensive and doubtful experiments are confined to the few. 

 All can read the records of their trial. Few only may gener- 

 alize, or care to do so. All but the stupid can comprehend, 

 and all but the indolent will apply the rules which sound 

 generalization supplies. All who read, know very well the 

 common constituents of plants ; all, however, are not expert 

 enough to conduct the analysis necessary to find their propor- 

 tions in composition, or the absence of either in the soil. They 

 know the principles of growth and the causes of sterility — the 

 diseases and the remedies. 



Topics such as these have become so common and interesting, 

 as in many neighborhoods to have supplanted those of vicious 

 and mischievous excitement. Upon these very grounds we 

 hear constantly close discussions and keen criticisms upon 

 modes of culture, and witness a constant interchange of its 

 ways and means, and they are not among the small gains whioh 

 come of our annual gatherings. 



