236 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



minerals annually borne away : the subtraction being 

 greater in proportion as the crop is more exacting and 

 luxuriant. 



What I know of Science as applicable to Farming 

 is little indeed ; but I know that there is such 

 Science, and that each succeeding year enlarges, im- 

 proves^ and perfects it. I know that I should thus 

 far have farmed -to far better purpose, if I had been 

 master even of so much Science as already exists. 



Understand that I am not a teacher of this Science 

 I stand very low in the class of learners. I began 

 to learn too late in life, and have been too incessantly 

 harassed by a multiplicity of cares, to make any 

 satisfactory progress. Any tolerably educated boy of 

 fifteen may know far more of Agricultural Science by 

 the time he has passed his eighteenth birth-day than 

 I do. What I know in this respect can help him 

 very little ; my faith that there is much to be known, 

 and that he may master it if he will, is all that is of 

 much importance. If I can convince a considerable 

 number of our youth that they may surely acquire a 

 competence by the time they shall have passed their 

 fortieth year, without exce:sive labor or penurious 

 frugality, by means of that knowledge of principles 

 and laws subservient to Agriculture which their 

 fathers could not, but which they easily may attain, 

 I shall have rendered a substantial service alike to 

 them and to our country. 



