404 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



this knowledge, which science alone can furnish, we might ap- 

 ply a kind of manure which would be injurious and perhaps 

 destructive. But suppose, however, such food be not adminis- 

 tered, that the ground is prepared, and the grain sown ; it may- 

 flourish for a season, because it may find its proper nutriment 

 in the soil, but let it be sown year after year, and it will prove 

 less and less productive, and ultimately fail. 



It has been the practice in countries producing wine, to bury 

 the prunings of the vine at its root ; and chemical analysis has 

 lately discovered that it contains a large proportion of potash, 

 which is essential to its growth and productiveness. Again, it 

 has long been known that a tree planted in a soil, in which 

 one of the same species has previously grown, will flourish but 

 poorly. Why is this? If a chemist analyzes both the tree 

 and the soil, the former will be found to contain, and to require 

 for its growth and fruitfulness, elements of which the latter is 

 deficient. Hence, we learn with what kind of material that 

 soil should be fertilized. We have seen instances also, in 

 which barn yard manure had been so abundantly applied as to 

 retard or prevent vegetation, and where sand, gravel, virgin 

 loam or clay, was worth more to that soil than these manures ; 

 and we have seen other instances, in which mineral manures, 

 as lime, had been so profusely applied as to lose all efficacy. 

 Why was it ? Chemical analysis affords the reply and discov- 

 ers to us that the soil was surcharged with these elements, and 

 makes known the materials, and the proportion requisite to re- 

 vive productive energy. 



It is too late, in the progress of improvement, to denounce 

 or anathematize these sciences. Though yet in their infancy, 

 they have achieved wonders, and are destined to still greater 

 results. There are departments of knowledge important to the 

 agriculturist, which they have hardly entered — such, for the 

 most part, as their application to the cure of the various dis- 

 eases to which the vegetable kingdom is subject. We need 

 here a materia mcdica, and science must provide it ; books 

 which shall treat more fully of the diseases of plants, and 

 which shall prescribe appropriate remedies ; yea, which shall 

 guard and preserve our vines from the bugs, our plums from 



