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GENESEE FARMER 



Mab. 



Lecture before the Junius Farmers' Club. 



Mr. Hditor : — At the request of the Fanners' 

 Club, Junius, I send you tlie following extract of 

 my lecture, before that Club, on Friday evening 

 last. "S. W. 



Waterloo, Feb., 16, 1846. 



" There are doubtless some farmers liere pres- 

 ent, who reason that, as agriculture has existed 

 thousands of years, as an Art, without a scien- 

 tific basis, it should thus continue a simple imi- 

 tative art, to the end of the world. This would 

 be g<iod philosophy, my friends, if man had only 

 tlie necessities of the lower animals ; but being 

 of a nobler nature, " created after the image of 

 his Maker," — gifted with superior intellectual 

 endowments, for his own impi'ovement, comfort 

 and sui)port — it is incumbent on him that he 

 ■hould give " evidence of the hope that is in 

 him," by the improvement of his talents, for the 

 benefit of himself and his race; and that his tal- 

 ent should be neither misapplied, nor suffered to 

 "rust in him unused." 



To make a good Priest, a Lawyer, or a Doctor 

 of Medicine, a long and patient study of books is 

 •sonsidered indispensable. To make a good Me- 

 chanic, at least some knowledge of mathematics 

 is necessary, before he can be instructed to frame 

 a common building, or to construct any article 

 requiring a given power, regularity, or motion. 

 But ;usk a farmers' opinion, what it takes to make 

 a good Farmer, and he will place his art in an in- 

 tellectual ])osition, far below that of the mechan- 

 ic ; ten to one he will jjlace it on a level with 

 that of the wood-sawyer, or the hod-carrier. 

 Make farming, what God in the beginning des- 

 igned it to be, an intellectual science, and you 

 rid the drudgery connected with it of half its 

 terrors. But as long as a fiT.rmer pursues his cal- 

 ling mechanically, without other light than tra- 

 ditionary practice, or the vagaries of the crazy 

 moo?i, just so long he will be a hod-carrier — 

 stimulated only by the most sordid of the pas- 

 sions, the love of gain, or the fear of want — 

 just as his fellow laborer, the Ox, is stimulated by 

 the fear of the lash. 



Ask Professor LiEBiG how much he would take 

 to work all day in a Chemical Laboratory, among 

 the fumes of liberated acids, without taking note 

 of the combinations and results produced there, 

 and he would tell you that he had rather work so 

 long on a tread-mill. Every man's fiirm is, on a 

 grand scale, a Ciiemical Laboratory ; yet how 

 many farmers daily perform thereon a tread-mill 

 business! Ilow often, how many thousand tin)es, 

 I have heard a farmer complain of the hopeless, 

 ill-requited drudgery of his calling. But who- 

 ever heard an ex])orimental Chemist coniplainof 

 the drudgery of his noisome vocation. Did the 

 great Fi'ltox ever complain of the drudgery of 

 his la! or, in perfecting the sloam engine ? 1 

 presume not; lor here the immortal mind lifted 



up and sustained the mortal body. Let the far- 

 mer thus study the science of his great art, and 

 in the same manner will his body be sustained in 

 its labors, by the unfolding beauties of nature, as 

 disclosed by the never failing regularity, and con- 

 sistency, of nature's laws. 



It is not necessary, that every farmer should 

 he a practical chemist ; it is sufficient for him to 

 know the theory of that simple orfjanic chemis- 

 try which jjertains to the earth's vegetable pro- 

 ducts. He can learn from books or agricultural 

 ])apers, the analyses of the ashes of the grain and 

 plants he produces. Here he will see that wheat 

 contains more of the phosphates of lime and pot- 

 ash than any other grain ; and that common wood 

 aslies, crushed, or calcined bones, poudrette, 

 urine, &ic. &c., will furnish these phosphates to 

 the soil in larger quantities than any other known 

 substances. He will here learn that the whole 

 structure of vegetation, except the ashes, is com- 

 posed of four simple atmospheric gnsses, to wit: 

 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the lat- 

 ter substance is combined with hydrogen in the 

 form of ammonia. He will here learn, also, the 

 manner in which these gasses are evolved in the 

 soil, and assimilated by the growing plants; the 

 action of manures, the two-fold office of lime, 

 and the alkalies, both as the inorganic constitu- 

 ents of plants, and as solvents of other matter in 

 the soil, as ready food for plants. 



If England had our wood ashes, the bones, 

 horns, hoofs and urine of animals, wasted in this 

 country, it would save her millions of dollars ex- 

 pended for imported manures. But we are fast 

 paying the penalty of our reckless waste of God's 

 bounties. The average yield of wheat in Sene- 

 ca county is now computed at eleven bushels to 

 the acre ; in England, it is not less than forty 

 imperial bushels to the acre. But if England 

 beats us four to one in the production of wheat, 

 how much more would she exceed us in the growth 

 of Indian Corn, if her climate permitted its ac- 

 climation ? How often have I passed a corn field 

 early in the season, the weeds above the corn; when 

 fairly stunted the farmer hoes it, and the drought 

 takes it. Verily, say I to myself^ this farmer 

 nuist be a rich man, or he could not thus afTord 

 to fence, plough and plant a field, and then throw 

 away the crop ! Ask this man in the fall ho\T 

 his crop turned out, and he will tell you the 

 drought almost destroyed it. Truly the mercy 

 of God is long suffering, or lie would turn this 

 man to a pillar of salt, for thusbelieing his most 

 gracious blessing, the warming influence of the 

 sun. I have often heard of a season too hot for 

 Indian Corn, but I never yet saw such a phe- 

 nomenon in this climate, on a tenacious soil. 'Tis 

 true that when you do not plant early, manure 

 high, and till often, drought may curl the leaves. 

 But in my gaiden I grew this dryest of dry sea- 

 sons, the greatest yield of Indian Corn, to the 

 rod square, that I ever saw grow on the eai-th's 



