48 THE GROUtfDSWELL. 



farmer soon learns that the careful saving and application 

 of manure, thorough drainage, perfect disintegration and 

 working of the soil, careful selection of seed, attention to 

 meteorological influence, etc., are as much a part of good 

 farming as of horticulture. 



Hence, the farmer begins to read and reflect, study the 

 effect of various manures on different crops, and the exact 

 value of each crop in the rotation. He finds that the soil 

 returns value just in proportion as it is fed. He sees again 

 that feeding crops is not the only sustenance necessary to 

 maintain the ; strength of the land he cultivates, but also 

 that certain conditions of the soil enable it to store up plant 

 food from the great storehouse of nature, the atmosphere. 

 He is taught to study the anatomy and physiology of plants. 

 From this the gradation is easy to that of animals ; and 

 hence the present superior condition of horses, cattle, sheep, 

 swine, and other farm stock. At last he comes to know 

 that agriculture is simply an unceasing transition from 

 plant to animal, and from animal again to plant, in which 

 nothing is lost, nothing gained. All was once dust, and to 

 dust it ascain returns. 



WHY ARE FARMERS BEHIND HORTICULTURISTS ! 



The principal reason, however, why farmers, as a class, 

 are behind horticulturists is, that they have kept themselves 

 isolated ; have been too intent on the all-absorbing routine 

 duties of the farm ; have moved, plodding along in the 

 grooves their forefathers hewed out; have not kept pace 

 with the times ; have neglected the higher education of the 

 mind, to which members of other professions have devoted 

 themselves so diligently; and have carried their not unjusti 

 fiable contempt of &quot; book-farming&quot; to an extent that has re- 



