518 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE NECESSITY FOR A MORE ENLIGHTENED AG- 

 RICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



"We do not flatter ourselves that we have developed anything in the fore- 

 going pages particularly novel or especially valuable. We shall be satisfied 

 if, by giving to our agricultural friends an outline of the vegetation of the globe 

 as aiFected by climatic peculiarities, accompanied by some illustrations of the 

 value of a right application of a knowledge of botanical geography, we succeed 

 in inviting their attention to those which influence our own land, and so interest 

 them that they may be induced to observe and study for themselves the phe- 

 nomena of meteorology and vegetable physiology, &c., ia connexion with the 

 progress of their crops and the various processes of vegetation. If we suc- 

 ceed in awakening some indifi'erent ones to a just conception of the importance 

 of the subject, in order to a correct understanding of American agriculture, 

 and in exhibiting to them and others how they may aid in placing it upon a 

 scientific basis, the only sound basis upon which anything dependent upon the 

 influences of natural phenomena can be built, we shall not have occasion to 

 regret our eff"ort. 



Though man has lived upon the earth several thousand years, and has tilled 

 the ground and reaped its products, he yet knows but little of the art, still less 

 of the science of agriculture. What he has learned is merely the result of 

 groping in the dark, the fruits of conjecture and experiment unguided by a 

 knowledge of principles. Were the practitioners of every other art as igno- 

 rant of the principles upon which their processes are founded, Ave would not 

 have emerged from the darkness of past ages, and almost every modern discov- 

 ery and invention would be unknown. It is to modern science that we are 

 indebted for our progress in physical comforts and the vast accessions of en- 

 joyment Avhich have been added to the lives of the cultivated classes, and 

 which are partaken of, in measure, by even the least intellectual. Very few 

 of these great discoveries have been made by chance and by ignorant persons, 

 much fewer than is by some supposed. They have generally been made by 

 persons of competent knowledge, who have sought for them, and who have 

 met their reward through much pains-taking investigation. The facts that 

 have gradually accumulated, the observations recorded by patient observers, 

 have been applied by those who were more skilled, and who have been led to 

 extend their inquiries beyond the depths already known, and to bring up 

 therefrom new truths which add to the pleasure or the well-being of mankind. 

 They who are themselves unacquainted with the principles of their art must 

 he incapable of employing opportunities for experiment, must be unable to ob- 

 serve aright or to investigate, and can never strike out anything new that may 

 be useful in art, or curious or interesting in science. They, on the other hand, 

 who are familiar with the reasons for the processes they employ may, perhaps, 

 become improvers of the art they work at, or even discoverers in the science 

 connected with it. They are daily handling the tools and materials with which 

 new experiments are to be made, daily witnessing the operations of nature, are 

 always in the way of perceiving Avhat is wanting or wh;it is amiss in the old 

 methods, and have a better opportuuity for making improvements, and, if they 

 possess the requisite ability, can take advantage of them; for, as has been well 

 said by an able writer on the chemistry of agriculture: "He that is master 

 of principles is like a watchman in a belfry — the whole city is before him. He 

 who cannot rise abo\'e detail is like a man in an alley, who does not know what 

 is passing in the next street." 



it is by no means necessary that a man should do nothing else but study 

 known truths, or devote himself to investigation, in order to become skilled in 

 the knowledge of the principles of his art or profession. Some of the greatest 

 men of science have been engaged in the pursuits of active life, devoting to 



