58 Education of the Agriculturist. [Feb., 



its first action. But it is not contented with this. It craves to unite 

 with some acid, and there being none near, it persuades the carbon 

 to take a little oxygen from the air and become carbonic acid, that it 

 may form a union with it, and become, what in chemistry is called, 

 carbonate of lime. The lime then greatly accelerates the decompo- 

 sition of compost heaps, and quickly rots them. 



But if lime is put among manures rich in ammonia, (as all stable 

 and animal manures are) then the ammonia, the most valuable part 

 of the manure, must leave, and is indeed literally driven off; for in 

 chemical combinations there prevails 



"The good old law, the simple plan, 

 That they should get who have the power, 

 Aud they should keep who can." 



The ammonia being alkaline, has the same appetites as the lime, 

 but being the weaker of the two, is expelled, and the ' strong man ' 

 occupies its house. Hence, never put quick-lime among stable or 

 animal manures, for thereby you lose the ammonia. 



EDUCATION OF THE AGKICULTURIST. 



No man is so high as to be independent of the success of this great 

 interest ; no man is so low as not to be afi'ected by its prosperity or 

 decline. Agriculture feeds us ; to a great degree it clothes us j 

 without it we could not have manufactures, and we should not have 

 commerce. These all stand together, but they stand together like 

 pillars in a cluster, the largest in the center, and that largest is ag- 

 riculture. We live in a country of small farms and freehold tene- 

 ments ; a country in which men cultivate with their own hands their 

 own fee simple acres, drawing not only their subsistence, but also 

 their spirit of independence and manly freedom, from the ground 

 they plow. They are at once its owners, its cultivators, and its de- 

 fenders. The cultivation of the earth is the most important labor 

 of men. ]Man may be civilized, in some degree, without groat prog- 

 ress in manuftietures, and with little commerce with his distant 

 neighbors ; but without cultivation of the earth, he is, in all coun- 

 tries, a savage. Until he gives up the chase, and fixes himself to 

 some place and seeks a living from the earth, he is a roaming bar- 

 barian. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, 

 therefore, are the founders of human civilization. — Daniel Webster. 



