AGRICULTURAL METEOROLOGY. A} 9 
5. For forming a class of farmers from youth, it would be necessary 
to establish in the college of agriculture in each State, a course of 
physics and of meteorology applied especially to agriculture. These 
courses should embrace two parts—the one theoretical, the other practi- 
eal. The starting-point of the first is celestial and terrestrial physics, 
upon which repose almost entirely the laws which preside over the vari- 
ations of terrestrial and atmospheric phenomena, and which form the 
science of meteorology; afterwards comes the study of the phenomena 
of vegetable life, comprised in the anatomy and physiology of plants; 
next the mineralogical constitution of the soil and the geographical 
distribution of the vegetable kingdom will complete this first part, 
purely theoretical. It is, of course, understood that only such deduc- 
tions of these sciences are used as are indispensable to the study of agri- 
culture. Agricultural chemistry is a superior branch, which will fellow 
agricultural physics, and the influence of which on the vegetable organi- 
zation is much more limited and less direct. In the second part, entirely 
practical, we should apply each theoretical acquisition of knowledge to 
the conservation, growth, and reproduction of the plant, taking care to 
establish the action and reaction which always exist between vegetable 
lite, the atmosphere, and the soil. This payt would be completed by an 
experimental (iemonstration of the physical functions of the plant, and 
by a new series of experiments for the purpose of perfecting agriculture. 
Another means, more economical at first, for diffusing this knowledge, 
would be the association of all the colleges of agriculture in the United 
States, for the purpose of contributing a series of annual lectures, 
which should be delivered by the same professor, for uniformity in theo- 
retical doctrine and especially in experimental methods. These lectures 
should be perfected each year by the announcement of new discoveries 
in this branch. ; 
6. Finally, we have long possessed numerous treatises on agricuitural 
chemistry, but unfortunately we have only one treatise on agricultural 
meteorology, that by the Count de Gasparin, dated 1844, the indications 
of which are far below modern science. Why this chasm in a branch 
which constitutes the basis of agriculture? It is because the meteoro- 
logical phenomena are much more complicated than the chemical phe- 
nomena, that chemistry could constitute itself into an experimental 
Science, while meteorology remains in its infancy. 
Meteorology, well comprehended, which embraces the great science 
of the reciprocal infiuence of atmospheric and terrestrial media upon 
animal and vegetable organization, could not be constituted before the 
two bases, physical and chemical, were established. It was necessary 
first to know the medium and the living being before we could establish 
the reciprocity of action and reaction between them. On the other hand, 
physics being the basis of chemistry, it follows that agricultural meteor- 
ology is likewise the basis of agricultural. chemistry. It is therefore 
perfectly natural to proceed from physical and chemical phenomena, 
less complicated, to meteorological phenomena, more complicated. 
Meteorology possesses already an abundance of facts and accumulated 
experiments, which only await the moment of their application and the 
deduction of their reciprocal laws. It is, therefore, time to bring before 
. the public, for the instruction of farmers, a treatise on meteorological 
agriculture, theoretical and practical. 
I have no doubt that, at an early day, the Government will take pride 
in establishing an experimental field and a division of meteorology in 
the Department of Agriculture, which, by uniting precision with utility, 
will make agriculture a practical science, and secure each year the rich- 
