C. T. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 403 



population is thin, and land abundant, the husbandman seizes 

 upon the lighter and better soils, subjects them to an exhaust- 

 ing tillage, and then abandons them for similar fresh lands. As, 

 however, population becomes dense, and land comparatively 

 scarce and high, the progress of reclamation begins on the farm, 

 as that of filling up does in the city ; and science and skill are 

 developed in its accomplishment. The process is well com- 

 menced in Massachusetts. What it shall effect, we can judge 

 from what it has achieved in England, and is now doing in 

 Sweden and Norway, where it promises, (it is said,) " to add 

 nearly an entire third to the best land of the Scandinavian pen- 

 insula." 



But this necessity is not limited to bringing in new lands. 

 It also leads to measures for increasing the fertility of that 

 which is already cultivated. Hence, reclamation and higher 

 cultivation go hand in hand. The latter is quite as characteris- 

 tic an improvement of our time as the former. While the soil 

 from its own unassisted strength will yield all that is demand- 

 ed, there is no inducement to manure, or to study scientific pro- 

 cesses to aid its production. To the settler on the rich lands of 

 our western States, manure is a burden, and the farmer on the 

 banks of the Volga carts it out upon the ice of the stream, to 

 be floated down in the spring to the Caspian sea. We en- 

 counter no such difficulty. Our soil must be annually reno- 

 vated by some equivalent for what is annually taken from it. 

 And as its energies are more taxed, they must be more stimu- 

 lated. In many instances, we must restore what it has taken a 

 series of years to subtract. Our land must be assisted and en- 

 riched. To do this to the greatest extent, and in the cheapest 

 manner, is the problem before the Massachusetts farmer. In 

 working it out, he has made progress. He has, at least, learned 

 where to seek information, if not entirely what to do. He feels 

 that science can analyze the wants of a plant or grain, as well 

 as the components of a soil, and declare what the one demands, 

 and the other should yield. He thus knows, at once, what 

 crops he must put upon the soil, or what soil he must bring to 

 the crops. This enables him to husband, as well as create or 

 combine his manures, and rightly to manage their application. 



