22. Beport of 1h« Agricultural Committee. 



» er quantity tlian it ordinarily yields. The Silesian beet 

 ). root, for instance, is found, from this cause alone, to 

 )) contain at present a larger proportion of its saccharine 

 » constitutents than it did wlien first employed for manu- 

 » facturing purposes. » — £'i!ans,5«(/.; Planter s Man. .-p. 229. 



« The General object of agriculture is to produce in the 

 » most advantageous manner cerlainqualities, or a maxinumi 

 » size, in certain parts or organs of particular plants. Now 

 .)) this object can be attained only by the application of our 

 » knowledge of such substances as we know to be indispeu- 

 » sable to the development of those parts or organs, or by 

 » supplying the conditions necessary to the production of the 

 » qualities desired. The rules of a rational system of agri- 

 » culture should enable us, therefore, to give to each plant 

 » that which it specially requires for the attainment of the 

 » object in view.)) 



« The Special object of agriculture is to obtain an abnor- 

 » mal development and production of certain parts of 

 » plants, or of certain vegetable matters, employed as food 

 » for man and animals, or for the purposes of industry. 



« The means employed vary according to the objects 

 » which it is desired to attain. Thus, the mode of culture 

 » employed for the purpose of procuring fine pliable straw 

 )> for Tuscan hats, is the very opposite to that which must be 

 )) adopted in order to produce a maximum of corn from the 

 » same plant. Peculiar methods must be used for the |)roduc- 

 » tion of nitrogen in the seeds, others for giving strength to 

 » the straw, and others again must be followed when we 

 » wish to give such strength and solidity to the straw as will 

 » enable it to hear the weight of the ears. We must proceed 

 » in the culture of plants in precisely the same manner as 



