THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



39S 



opened up ? The great point to be kept in view in the 

 farmer's education is not to cram knowledge into the 

 boy's head, but how to give him a good strong head ; 

 and I must add also, how to keep his heart warm. It is 

 true that a great deal of scientific knowledge is required 

 for a perfect theory of agriculture. But is it necessary 

 for perfect practice ? Is scientific training in early 

 years the best means of preparing the man for the exer- 

 cise of sound judgment ? A perfect mastery of our own 

 noble language is essential to express our own ideas 

 clearly, and to understand those of others. It is gene- 

 rally understood that the best way to acquire a know- 

 ledge of our mother-tongue is to learn another language, 

 ancient or modern. The great principles of mathema- 

 tical knowledge lie at the root of all sound mechanics, 

 and prepare the mind for accurate calculation, for win- 

 nowing out the real point at issue, and blowing away the 

 chaff. I have it on the authority of a schoolmaster, 

 whose success in recent examinations is well known, that 

 such an education as I have referred to is appreciated by 

 no class more decidedly than by the leading yeomanry. 

 I may also call the attention of this Club to the fact that 

 one of the first steps towards the improvement of the 

 general education of England was taken at the council of 

 an agricultural society, and is recorded in the fifth vol., 

 page 431, of the Bath and "West of England Society's 

 Journal, to this effect : At a meeting of the Council, 

 held at Taunton on the 28th of March, 1857, it was re- 

 solved unanimously, " That the Council fully assent to 

 the opinion that skill in business generally is best ac- 

 quired by practice, and that the best preparation for 

 practical life is a good general education ; that the co- 

 operation of some independent examiners, with a local 

 committee, appears well calculated to secure confidence 

 in the results of the examinations." On these two reso- 

 lutions were founded the measures for university local ex- 

 aminations now adopted in all parts of England. The 

 spirit of commerce or gain urged men to an examination 

 of substances which by their application will enable the 

 farmer to raise larger crops, and continue their culture, 

 without exhausting the soil to the prejudice of succeeding 

 ones. This search for extraneous matters seems to have 

 been pursued as an art, for science at the time had not 

 extended her researches in this direction; though as 

 early as about 1600 many substances now used as manure 

 were mentioned as enriching the ground, to wit, the 

 dung of oxen, sheep, or pigeon; sea-kelp, sea-tangle, 

 and other sea-weeds, for arable and pasture land ; and 

 the dregs of beer and ale, brine of the strength of 1 of 

 salt to 18 or 20 of water, the soot of chimneys, and the 

 refuse from the refining of petre. Shavings of horn are 

 mentioned as making productive a most unfruitful plot 

 of ground; as also waste soap-ashes, malt-dust, and 

 oat-husks. We may remark that Virgil even says he 

 has seen husbandmen wet their seed with nitre and the 

 lees of oil, that the grain might be larger. Gypsum was 

 used as manure in 1770, and crushed bones in 1775. 

 Now, in the foregoing we recognize many of our ma- 

 nuring principles ; but these were not generally known 

 and used, or, when used, they were only applied as 

 specific substances without any but fanciful ideas re- 



specting their mode of fertilizing, and their use was 

 therefore empirical. It was reserved for the science 

 of chemistry to point out the connection between these 

 fertilizers and their produce, to discern the presence in 

 the two of certain elements which were the true cause of 

 their manuring qualities, and thence to teach us that 

 wherever the same principles could be found we might 

 rely upon a similarly happy result from their employ- 

 ment. In 1790 a professorship of agriculture was 

 founded at Edinburgh, the Highland Society having 

 been instituted in 1784. The Board of Agriculture was 

 established in 1794. The Royal Agricultural Society 

 was instituted in 1838. A professorship of agriculture 

 was founded at Oxford in 1840. In 1840 the College 

 of Chemistry and Agriculture was founded at Kennington 

 by Messrs. Nesbit. In the laboratories of this establish- 

 ment these sciences, with geology and botany, have been 

 illustrated, and their application has been set forth by 

 Mr. Nesbit's lectures and publications. In 1842 a col- 

 lege was founded at Cirencester, which received a charter 

 under the name of the Royal Agricultural College, to 

 which Professor "Way, and afterwards Professor Voelcker, 

 were attached ; and there also the application of the 

 sciences to agriculture has been taught. To Sir Humphrey 

 Davy agricultural chemistry is much indebted, from 

 whose time till that of I.iebig no chemist applied himself 

 to the application of chemical principles to the growth 

 of vegetables and to organic processes. Liebig gave the 

 greatest scientific stimulus to agriculture by suggesting 

 the use of vitriol or other acids to render the phosphates 

 soluble, and therefore more quickly available for the 

 nourishment of the plant, which result was immediately 

 acknowledged from its first trials in 1840 and 1841 ; 

 the effect of this solubility being to bring the turnip 

 quickly past the fly. About 1840 guano was first in- 

 troduced into England. It has, undoubtedly, been a 

 great boon to agriculturists ; for, besides a large amount 

 of nitrogen (the active principle of horn, soot, and other 

 ammoniacal manures), it contains phosphate of lime, a 

 manuring principle of bones, some being in a soluble 

 state, and having therefore the properties of dissolved 

 phosphates. Coprolites were discovered to be manure 

 about the same time (that is, about 1840) ; and, though 

 their phosphate of lime is in a condition unadapted for 

 solution by natural causes, by reducing them to a fine 

 powder and treatment with acid it is dissolved. Thus 

 we have opened up to us an amount of mineral manure 

 of vast extent, the discovery of which has, happily, been 

 simultaneous with that of a process necessary for its 

 proper utilization. It is to deeper cultivation and the 

 improvement of our waste lands that we have now to 

 look for the extension of our acreage produce. The 

 earliest records of substantial enclosures date from the 

 earliest period of the reign of George the Third, in 

 1760. The passing of more than three thousand bills of 

 enclosure in a reign of sixty years is a proof how rapidly 

 the cultivation of new land proceeded in that period ; 

 and, while the rent-roll of proprietors has been doubled, 

 tripled, and quadrupled by this cause, the condition of 

 the tenantry and of the labouring classes has been ame- 

 liorated in a proportionate degree. England exported 



