16 GENERAL SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 



century they have in England been permitted to languish. * The public 

 mind has been awakened, and the establishment of Agricultural Associ- 

 ations, provincial and local, are manifestations of the interest now felt 

 upon the subject in all parts of the country. It requires only the general 

 exhibition of such an interest, and the adoption of some general means of 

 encouragement, to stimulate both practical ingenuity and scientific zeal 

 to expend themselves on this most valuable branch of national industry. 



Science is never unwilling to lend her hand to the practical arts ; on 

 the contrary, she is ever forward to proffer her assistance, and it is not 

 till her advances have been rejected or frequently repulsed, that she re- 

 frains from aiding in their advancement. 



Need I advert, in proof of this, to the unwearied labours of the vege- 

 table physiologists — or to the many valuable observations and experi- 

 ments recorded in the memoirs of scientific chemists. In these memoirs, 

 or in professedly scientific works, such observations have not unfre- 

 quently been permitted to rest; — the public mind being unprepared 

 either to appreciate their value or to encourage the exertions of those wko 

 were willing to give them a practical and popular form. 



And how numerous are the branches of science connected with this 

 art ? Need I speak of botany, which is, as it were, the foundation on 

 which the first elements of agriculture rest ; or of vegetable physiology, 

 to the indications of which it has hitherto almost exclusively looked for 

 improvement and increased success ; or of zoology, which alone can 

 throw light on the nature of the numerous insects that prey upon your 

 crops, and so often ruin your hopes, — and which can alone be reason- 

 ably expected to arm you against their ravages, and instruct you to ex- 

 tirpate them ? Meteorology among her other labours tabulates the highest, 

 the mean, and the lowest, temperatures, as well as the quantity of rain 

 which falls during each day and each month of the year. Do you 

 doubt the importance of such knowledge to the proper cultivation of the 

 land ? Consider the destructive effects of a late frost in spring, or of a 

 continued heat in summer, and your doubts will be shaken. A wet sea- 

 son in our climate brings with it many evils to the practical agriculturist ; 

 but what effect must the rain have on the soil, in countries where nearly 

 as much falls in a month, as in England during the course of a whole 

 year ;* — where every thing soluble is speedily washed from the land, and 

 nothing seems to be left but a mixture of sand and gravel ? It may 

 indeed be said with truth, that no department of natural science is inca- 

 pable of yielding instruction — that scarcely any knowledge is superflu- 

 ous — to the tiller of the soil. 



It is thus that all branches of human knowledge are bound together, 

 and all the arts of life, and all the cultivators of them, mutually de- 

 pendent. And it is by lending each a helping hand to the others, that 

 the success of all is to be secured and accelerated ; while with the gene- 

 ral progress of the whole the advance of each individual is made sure. 

 The recent contributions and suggestions of geology are the best proof 

 of the readiness of the sciences of observation to give their aid to the 

 promotion especially of agricultural knowledge. The geologist can 

 best explain the immediate origin of your several soils, the cause of the 



* At Canton, in the month of May, the fall of rain is often as much as 20 inches. 



