COMMENCEMENT EXEKCLSES 381 



SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 



S. L. INGERSON, REPRESENTING THE AGRICULTURAL COURSE. 



The greatest earthly possession of the human race is the fertility of 

 the soil. It is the source of food supply. Between this store-house of 

 nourishment and the consumer stands agriculture, which tlius holds a 

 preeminent position among the occupations of men. No other vocation 

 deserves more attention or calls for more accurate and scientific knowl- 

 edge in its pursuit. At the same time there is no other branch of in- 

 dustry with regard to which less is known by the greater portion of 

 thoseVngaged in It. The world has not yet outgrown the ancient fallacv 

 that anybody can farm. This, like many other great errors, contains not 

 a little truth; for men with almost no knowledge of the subject and no 

 inclination to study it have become farmers, and some of them have even 

 amassed fortunes at the business. Yet in nearly all cases their success 

 has been achieved at the expense of the soil fertility, and those who fol- 

 low them upon the same land with the same methods must meet with 

 disappointment and failure. 



In most all countries lands which have been under cultivation for a 

 long term of years have steadily decreased in productive power. The 

 onward march of civilization has been the onward march of devastation. 

 In the lands formerly occupied by the empires of Assyria, Media and 

 Phoenicia, the seats of the greatest civilization of their day, fields which 

 once smiled with abundant harvests are now only wastes of burning 

 sand. The valley of the Nile has been saved from a similar fate only by 

 the annual overflow of the river. The once fertile lands of Europe are 

 being exhausted. Slowly but surely the tide of destruction and waste 

 has moved westward with civilization. It has crossed the Atlantic, has 

 seared the hills of New England, and is sweeping across the great plain. 

 The fair valleys of the ^lohawk and the Genesee already shows its 

 blighting influence. A comparison of present conditions with those of 

 forty years ago reveals great changes in the farming lands of our own 

 State.' The large crops which were raised by the early settlers are not 

 duplicated toda,y. We are wasting our soil capital and are drifting 

 toward the bankruptcy of soil-exhaustion. Any other result has been 

 brought about by one of two causes. Either the requirements of the 

 farming class have been limited to the bare necessities of existence, while 

 bv a strict system of economy handed down from father to son nothing 

 has been taken from the soil without a corresponding return being made, 

 or the business of farming has been made the subject of careful study, 

 and its operations carried on according to scientific principles. In 

 either case the fertility of the soil has been preserved by the addition of 

 fertilizing materials. The former system is exemplified in China and Japan 

 The latter is practiced in some small portions of Europe and America, 

 and is the only system which is practical in this country- 



The probleni of soil-exhaustion is further complicated by the fact that 

 greater demands are made upon the soil every year. The increase of 

 population in this country is resulting in the division of land into smaller 

 and smaller ])a reels, each of which must support a family. Moreover, 

 the farmer of today requires more in the way of luxuries than did the 



