PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURE. 13 



his plant grow perfectly. His long series of experiments, at 

 first carried on by himself at the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, 

 and afterwards under the patronage of the Emperor Louis Na- 

 poleon, on the imperial farm at Vincennes, has led him to infer 

 that the aliment preferred by cereals is nitrogen ; by leguminous 

 plants polassa ; by roots, the phosphates ; to all of which he adds 

 lime, with such proportion of humus as will render the lime 

 acceptable to the plant. He gives a formula of the proper 

 quantities of these various substances to be used in growing the 

 crops, and defines the state in which they are to be used. He 

 publishes the results of his practice, and furnishes tables, which 

 I can only refer to as of great interest. The practical result is, 

 in one respect, similar to that of the experiments near London, 

 viz. : that animals are not at ail necessary, so far as manure is 

 concerned. ' You will find the whole system developed in Prof. 

 Ville's " Six Lectures on Agriculture." Such experiments as 

 these I have referred to should be continued at our agricultural 

 colleges, and other scientific institutions, and as far as possible 

 by practical farmers, and we must expect great reforms, even 

 from the application of the results thus far obtained. 



MUCH KNOWLEDGE NEEDED. 



It is becoming very evident that whatever may have been the 

 character of farmers heretofore, the present advanced state and 

 further requirements of the art of agriculture, demand intelli- 

 gence, close observation, good sense, learning ; in short, science. 

 To be a successful farmer in these times a man needs to be a 

 mechanic and a chemist. He needs knowledge of physiology 

 and geology. He should have knowledge of natural history, 

 botany, veterinary medicine and surgery, book-keeping, arith- 

 metic and surveying. It will not do hereafter to say of the 

 dullest boy in the family that he can be a farmer, because he is 

 unfit for anything else. He must have all the elements of an 

 earnest man in him, with good reasoning and analytical powers, 

 and no slow blood, or indurated brain, or else, though he might 

 make a poor lawyer, doctor or politician, it is not at all probable 

 he will succeed as a farmer. Why, the science of agriculture, 

 in its highest sense, requires more knowledge, based on a large 

 part of the physical sciences, while it requires as much literary 

 education to understand, as any of the other professions. In- 



