OUR IMPROVING AGRICULTURE. 



clothe the entire population of the world for acentury, under a wise system of agriculture 

 and horticulture." 



She shows us how the virgin soil of the New World has been already rifled of its trea- 

 sures; how the American idea of developijig the resources of the country has led to the 

 construction of railroads and canals, on which, in the form of wheat and corn, the ele- 

 ments of fertility — the very life blood of the earth, have been freighted away and sold for 

 money, and no return has been made to the land, till the fertile soil of some counties in 

 New- York, which once produced an average crop of thirty bushels of wheat to the acre, now 

 produce but seven or eight; how the continued cropping of lands in parts of Virginia and 

 other more southern states, with tobacco, has literally laid the land desolate, and com- 

 pelled its inhabitants to seek new homes, on a soil fresh from the hands of the Creator. 



And so we are made to perceive, that a system leading to results so disastrous, can be 

 but temporary, and false, and ruinous; that in the New World we have heretofore but 

 gathered the almost spontaneous fruits of the soil, and now must gird up our loins for se- 

 vere and intelligent labor. 



In these, and in a thousand other modes, does science aid and direct, and warn, and in- 

 struct us. In every form, in every department, is she destined, even more and more, to 

 render us assistance. They who sneer at her name as connected with agricultural pro- 

 gress, do but show their own ignorance. 



But, while we would gratefully avail ourselves of every branch of science, it is impor- 

 tant that we remember that Ave labor in a boundless field, and that, although we maj^ con- 

 stantl}^ advance in the study of the operations of nature, we are at all times liable to er- 

 ror, and often groping blindly in the dark, in our endeavors to solve her mysteries. 



The agricultural chemist is subject to peculiar embarrassments in his investigations. 

 Although the operations of chemical affinity, and the results of chemical combinations, are 

 doubtless governed by laws as uniform as those of gravitation, and the revolutions of the 

 heavenly bodies, so that the chemist in his laboratory, maj' pursue his experiments with 

 almost the certaint)' and clearness with which a mathematician pursues his premises to a 

 demonstration; yet it is quite otherwise when he attempts to apply his principles to the 

 growth of plants. In the one case, he deals with two or three elements of known and cer- 

 tain qualities; in the other, his expected results may be influenced bj' the unsuspected pre- 

 sence or action of various substances or agencies. The elements, which in his vessels of 

 glass, will combine but in uniform proportions, and form but one single compound, in the 

 earth may be afTected by other agents, in such a manner as to prevent the combination ex- 

 pected, and produce results entirely different. 



And this is b}^ no means all. In every question affecting the growth of plants or ani- 

 mals, we are involved in a mystery far more perplexing than even the abstruse doctrines 

 of chemical science. I refer to the life principle. 



We know that the seed has power, under certain circumstances, to germinate, to strive 

 upwards for light, to put forth leaves, and flowers, and fruits, and that it finally dies. We 

 know, that on the same soil, watered by the same rain and dew, breathed upon by the 

 same air, gladdened by the same sunshine, spring up the rose and the lily, the crocus and 

 the violet, plants of various leaf, and flower, and seed — spring up and flourish side by side 

 together, each retaining its peculiar nature, each selecting from the air, the earth, the 

 water, its appropriate nourishment. We know that plants seem endowed with certain 

 instincts ; that flowers turn towards the light; thatcertain of our trailing vines will turn 

 their direct course in a single night, to seek a vessel of water placed near them 



found next morning with a leaf floating on its surface. 



