1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



17 



di Gttiscppe 3fcloi>;rani, with pome i'ew fitlditions 

 and sulisiraclions to nrakc it perlect for tlie pur- 

 pose. I am not aware that there is any Enixlish 

 work like it. 



6. Mechanical Drawing. — ft frequently hapfiens 

 that fanners, when they wish an inijilenient aiier- 

 eil, or ni;ule to a sliape ol llieir own conceiving, 

 have dillicuUy in gtMtinir it done, from the me- 

 chanic misunderstandiiii!;, or bein;ir unable to com- 

 prehend, written or verbal directions. A sliolu 

 acquaintance witii mechanical ilrawinur would ob- 

 viate such dilTicullies, and ofien save much expense. 



7. y/nunal Palhulogy, Physitdogt/, and retcri- 

 nartj Medicine. — 1 would nolattenmt to supersede 

 the v-ererinarian ; bui it is essential inat the iiu-mer 

 should oe acquainted with the causes and symp- 

 toms of the diseases catile are subject to, and of 

 the remedies to be apjilied, in order to be able to 

 treat them properly in cases o!" einertfencv. Phv- 

 sioiotfy sliould be carefully culiivaied. Ereeeders 

 are eternally falling into serious errors, from igno- 

 rance of it. 



8. J'JntomidDgij. — Only in n^laiion to the mode 

 of propagation, and the habiis of the insects 

 which are injurious to the farmer. 



9. Oic.mistnj. — Without a perlect knowled;j;e of 

 so much of chemistry as relates to ao;ricullure, 

 (which would embrace a pretty (general knovv- 

 ledije of it,) every other kind of knowledire would 

 be comparatively useless. I need not offer a word 

 in proof'of this. Tarncr^s, nr Brand's, Elements of 

 Chemistry, and Davy^s jlgricuUural Chemistry, 

 would be suiiable te.Kt books: the latter would be 

 indispensable.* 



10. English Grammer and Composition. — 

 These should be a ir;ain consideration. laiprove- 

 ment is generally the result of experience ; and 

 the n)ore men communicate to each other the re- 

 sults of their individual exf)erience, the more rap- 

 idly will improvement advance ; as in the majori- 

 ty of circumstances, communication can be made 

 by writing only, it is obvious the cultivation of 

 that art is of paramount importance. 



I know not that I can with property place Gal- 

 vanic Electricity amouLr the subjects to be studied 

 by the airnculiurist. My opinion is that it should 

 be studied, for it appears to me, that the effects of 

 galvanic actio;;, in the elaborating in the soil of 

 the food of niants, slionid be taken into considera- 

 tion. Bui I leave tho.se to determine, who are bet- 

 ter able to judire. 



The works I have named as text-books, sufli- 

 cienily point out the extent to which I would have 

 the school education of a liirmergo. 



To the schools there should be attached good 

 libraries of books, on the subjects I have named, 

 as of History, Voyages, Travels, Geosrraphy, 

 Statistics, and such like ; but not a volume ol" 

 what is Termed polite literatin-e, for the moment a 

 lad gets a taste for that sort of rubbish, it is good 

 bye to everythinix else. 



Such a system of education as this, I airi aware, 

 can be made general only by its being made a na- 

 tional object ; and ihat it never will be, as lonu as 

 we are ridden by the " monev- monster." Why 

 do not the landlords sliake it off? If they tolerate 

 it much longer, they will have to find quarters in 



* The private student should posses himself oi^ Far- 

 aday, on Chemical Manipulation : it would save hiai a 

 world of labor and disappouitinent. 



Vol. V— 3 



the ugly lookinjT workhouses they are now so busy 

 buildinjr to put the laborers and broken fiu-mers in, 

 to starve them off. Every day, in the same breath 

 that proclaims " national fLiith," they are told 

 ihey must reduce their rents; and are held u|) in 

 prose and verse, as they most detestable wretches 

 unhanged. Yet, the simpletons, they hesitate to 

 retort in the manner they should. Jjoileau, some- 

 where or other, observes, le plus sot animal, a 

 man avis, c'csi fhomme ; if instead oi'l'lnmime he 

 had written le proprictaire Anglois, he would 

 liave been nearer the mark. 



But much may be accomplished by private 

 means; though not by the instrumentality of 

 your bursting patriots, either whig or toiy ; for 

 by theni I have always found— as the deviffound 

 by the pig ' he sheared — more noise than wool. I 

 need say nothing of the means: they are obvious; 

 and any attempt at persuasion, to induce those 

 most iulimaiely concerned, to attempt to carry 

 some such plan as I have indicated, into general 

 orpariiai execution, would derofjate from the im- 

 portance of the object to be attained. 



B. DoNBAVAl?^D. 



I''rom tlie Genesee Farmer. 



KNOWLEDGE OF PLANTS APPLIED TO FARM- 

 ING AND GARDENING. 



The chief advantage of a scientific knowledge 

 of plants is, that it teaches the general laws of ve- 

 ixetable economy, and we are enabled to apply 

 this knowledge !o a great variety of cases which 

 occur in practice. Instead ol being under the ne- 

 cessity of ascertainini!; by experiment, a great 

 number of iiicts, determine a general principle by 

 experiment, and this general principle serves as a 

 foundation liom which we may at once judfje of 

 the truth orerrorof any thing which may bedirect- 

 ly re.itirred to it. We hope it may be interestino- 

 to the younger class of our readers at least to take 

 a very brief view of the science of botany and the 

 manner in which botanical knowledge is applied 

 in practice. 



Botany is that part of natural histoiy which 

 treats of plants. The term joZa/t^, in its most pro- 

 per sense, applies to every thing in the vege- 

 table kingdom, tiom the smallest herb which we 

 tread upon, to the largest forest tree. It includes 

 every thing fiom the minutest moss upon the rocks 

 to the gigantic pines upon our western coast, of 

 sixteen feet diameter and two hundred and thirty 

 feet in height. 



The number of different plants which botanists 

 have already named and described, amounts to 

 nearly sixly thousand; hence, without scientific 

 arranfrement, such a vast nmltitude would be but 

 an inextricable mass of confusion. Plants are ac- 

 cordinoly divided into classes, classes into orders, 

 orders mto iienera, and genera into species; those 

 he'inir placed in the same divisions or groups which 

 have some common, fixed and leading characters 

 or resemblances. Without this arrangement, if 

 an unknown plant should occur to us of which we 

 should wish to determine the name, it would be as 

 impossible to delermme such name by description, 

 as it would Ite to find a word in a dictionary without 

 arrangement. V^e would have to turn over many 

 thousand before we might chance to find the rio-ht 

 one. But by meansof arrangement, we turn di- 



