From the New England Fanner. 



Art. II.— science AND THE FAliMER. 



The farmer should understand geology. He should know the 

 composition and structure of the rocks which constitute so large a 

 part of the soil which he cultivates. He should know the nature 

 of the rocks in all the region around him, and what kind of soil 

 they will produce, when worn down by the action of the sun and 

 rain and frost. If the mountains and hills that look down upon his 

 farm contain marble, or granite, or slate, or iron, he should know 

 that these minerals, which have been upheaved from the bowels of 

 the earth, are being annually spread over the valleys and plains that 

 lie at their feet, by the drenching rains and melting snows which 

 wash their declivities. He should know how to select those soils 

 whose mineral composition is best suited to particular crops, and to 

 determine when they contain mineral elements that unfit them for 

 his purposes. 



He should know what is a sandy loam, and what a clayey loam, 

 and of what each consists. He should know what is an alluvial soil, 

 and what mineral elements it contains in any given locality. The 

 farmer should understand the leading principles of chemistry in 

 general, and all about those particular principles that are applicable 

 to agriculture. The earth is not a mere dead mass of matter. It 

 is a vast chemical laboratory, filled with various and strange materi- 

 als, full of activity and motion, in which composition and decompo- 

 sition and new combinations are constantly going on. To-day it 

 receives accessions and influences from the heavens, to-morrow it 

 throws ofi" newly-formed elements, that are carried into the ocean, 

 and deposited upon distant shores. The earth is almost a living 

 creature, and when quickened by atmospheric influences, she brings 

 forth innumerable living things, infinitely diversified in form, in 

 hue and fragrance, and each derives from her bosom the nutriment 

 that is suited to its character and wants ; truly is she called the moth- 

 er of all living things. The cultivator of the earth should surely 

 know something of its nature, its elements, its affinities, and its 

 diseases. 



The farmer should be a botanist. This is the natural science of 

 the agriculturist. Can he be content to spend his life in ignorance 

 of the names and properties and distinguishing characteristics of 

 the trees and shrubs and flowers that are so lavishly spread around 



