PREFACE. 



The Survey of New- York was indebted for its projection and execution to a 

 movement in science — a movement which pervaded the entire thinking com- 

 munity. It was one of those natural results which mark the progress of truth, 

 and in itself was an evidence of the progressive intelligence of the human mind. 



However much some may be disposed to credit this to individual enterprise, 

 or to the suggestions of an unit in the body politic, still we cannot forbear paying 

 tribute to the collective mind, for a state and condition prepared to appreciate 

 the undertaking. This, however, is scarcely enough ; for individuals have done 

 but little more than proclaim the general wish, or have acted only in obedience 

 to an impulse which pervaded community. The New- York survey was only a 

 part of that movement which had taken possession of the intelligent of all classes. 

 All the projects for discovery at home and abroad, in geography, physics and 

 natural history, are themselves parts only of one great series of movements, which 

 date but little farther back than the commencement of the nineteenth century, and 

 which have progressed until the present time. 



The survey of New- York, I have said, was one of the same series of scientific 

 enterprises which mark and characterize the times, and which the progressive 

 intelligence of community was prepared to appreciate. In a similar movement, 

 I now remark, we find the agricultural community. The art or science which 

 this community represents, and which is of the greatest importance to the human 

 family, is without doubt destined to that perfection which other sciences have 

 either attained, or to which they are rapidly progressing. In this department, 

 however, we cannot expect a rapid progress ; for the methods by which agricul- 

 ture is to be advanced, require the returning round of seasons. Truth here 

 requires the cumulative evidence of facts often repeated. But that agriculture 

 may partake as fully in the movements of the times as other sciences or arts, and 



Geol. 2d Dist. 1 



