NORTH-CAROLINA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



hers, and hence the natural resources fail, and there ever 

 afterwards exists a demand for skill and science to meet these 

 artificial wants. 



The first efforts to supply the meat and bread of a dense 

 population, in the earliest stages of society, are those which 

 belong to the simplest kinds. They consist mainly in provid 

 ing more room, light and air, or providing for the free pene 

 tration of roots through the soil, and the exclusion of weeds 

 or unnutritive plants. But, inasmuch as nutritive matter is 

 measured out and limited, and as there is no special provision 

 to create a new supply, constant removal will, in the course 

 of years, so far diminish the original stock, that the plant 

 ceases to grow or perfect its fruit, or does so under circum 

 stances less favorable for its perfection. 



At this period it becomes necessary to inquire how fertility, 

 when lost, may be restored ; and this inquiry becomes more 

 pressing in the direct ratio that the population has increased. 



Experience does, or may step in and postpone the period 

 of exhaustion, and partially supply, for a time, the nutritive 

 elements. But generally these shifts to postpone the period 

 of exhaustion fail, for they are merely the efforts of the em- 

 pyric. Empyricism in no business is likely to lead to the 

 discovery of sound principles; indeed, it cannot inform us of 

 the fact of exhaustion at all ; and hence, empyricism is not in 

 the direct road to improvement. In one instance it may prove 

 successful, but in the many it fails ; as it cannot assign a cause 

 or state a reason. 



The perfection of cultivation, or the perfection of agricul 

 ture, demands a reason ; and the period when a reason can 

 be assigned may be regarded as the third stage of improve 

 ment. It is at this stage that agriculture requires a direct 

 inquiry respecting cause and effect ; or, in other words, into 

 antecedents and consequents, in order that it may make pro 

 gress when the rules of empyricism fail. Agriculture, in some 

 of its scientific aspects, has obscurities, because it has en 

 quiries to make which are closely related to those of life ; and 

 life, whether regarded as a mysterious principle, or a force 

 dependent upon chemical relations, or chemical actions, i* 



