CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURE. 43 



science might be applied with the same prospect of success to his 

 employment — the most ancient and the most important of all hu- 

 man arts. But the revelations dimly seen, or rather prophetically 

 guessed at by Lavoisier, and since hi.s day fully unfolded by Davy, 

 Johnson, Liebig, and others, establish beyond all doubt the ex- 

 istence of a most intimate relation between chemistry and all the 

 occupations of the cultivator of the soil. Indeed, the discoveries 

 of agricultural chemistry have rushed upon us so rapidly, as hardly 

 to give us time to form a just estimate of their individual magni- 

 tude and importance ; and while it would be absurd to say that 

 they open to the farmer a future of indefinite progression in the 

 productiveness and the productions of the soil, this much may be 

 affirmed, that they prove the impossibility of noio fixing their 

 limits. 



Jn an admirable article on agriculture, in a recent number of 

 the London Quarterly Review, it is stated, that " between 1801 

 and 1841, the population of the British empire increased from 16,- 

 300,000, to 26,800,000 ; and these increasing numbers have been 

 sustained with food almost entirely by the augmented productions 

 of our own improving agriculture. By extensive enclosures, 

 draining, «&,c., an amount of new and efficient forces have been 

 called into action among the more energetic and intelligent part 

 of the cultivators of the soil, especially in the northern and eastern 

 portions of the island, which has been very nearly adequate to 

 meet, from our home supplies, the increased demand for food 

 arising from the addition of 10,000,000 to the population of the 

 empire in the first forty years of this steam-rate century." We 

 introduce this passage simply to show how the productiveness of 

 a country may be increased — even one which has for many centu- 

 ries been under cultivation. The results of particular instances of 

 improvement, as given in the article already quoted from, are 

 truly astonishing ; and w^hat is w^orthy of especial remark is the 

 fact that the most surprising of these results should be placed to 

 the credit of agricultural chemistry. 



Now, how shall the problem of greatest and most profitable 

 productiveness, at least expense, be resolved ? In this impor- 

 tant work, there is doubtless much which the American far- 

 mer must do for himself, but at the same time he needs, and must 

 have, the aid of the state. For, 



