16 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



used by the farmers of Egypt to raise the waters of the Nile 

 for irriuation. Botany, anotlier name for horticulture, is only 

 a branch of agriculture — valuable as it acquaints us with the 

 structure and habits of various plants, and aids in determining 

 what soils to select, and what modes of treatment will be 

 crowned with the most certain success. It has been a study 

 ever since Eve gathered bouquets in Eden, Natural history or 

 zoology, whicli describes the various classes of animals, and 

 tells how they can be made serviceable to man, and how they 

 can be improved, was familiar to Jacob, when he met Rachel 

 by the well of Haran, watering her father's sheep, and before 

 he served Laban for the speckled and spotted cattle. These, 

 and other branches of knowledge, are the products of agri- 

 culture. 



But geology, mineralogy and chemistry are the trio of sciences, 

 which at the present day are so intimately connected with 

 agriculture that the latter may almost be considered a fourth 

 science of the same family. Though it can hardly be claimed 

 that they owe their origin to agriculture, yet it is certainly true 

 that the demands it has made upon them have been the 

 strongest incentives to their own progress. Their professors 

 have been spurred on to further investigations and new dis- 

 coveries, in order that they might be fitted to answer the 

 riddles propounded from the farm. The labors of Liebig, 

 Johnston, Miller, Horsford, Hitchcock, and the whole galaxy 

 of scientific liglits in the last quarter of a century, have been 

 directed to the elucidation of the great principles that underlie 

 agriculture, and the results of their investigations are as essen- 

 tial to the farmer who would conduct his business understand- 

 ingly and successfully, as the plough itself. 



The farmer of to-day must not only be able to plough his 

 land, but as he does so he must be able to judge of its charac- 

 ter, its wants, its susceptibilities. Without waiting a half- 

 dozen years in experimenting, he must be able to decide whether 

 or not it is deficient in some one or more principles which, if 

 added, will adapt it to a given crop. Of the various fertilizers 

 brought to his notice, he must be able to say whether any of 

 them are preferable, in cheapness and cflectiveness, to the accu- 

 mulations of his own barnyard, and which of them possesses 

 the very elements rc(iuired by his own soil. All the conditions, 



