AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



press ; and the impetus that was given to the j have yet accomplished much ; but of what 

 human mind, tutoring it to follow reason rather they are capable of achieving, an estimate 



than habit, was felt by the cultivators ot 

 soil. The eighteenth and present centuries 

 have been those in which the improvement 

 has been marked, and the instances of which 

 have already been noticed. The reason of 

 this is to be found in its having then very 

 generally engaged the attention of a more en- 

 lightened class of society. The noblemen, the 

 gentry, and even the monarch of England, be- 

 came practical agriculturists; and under the 

 patronage of George III., the Duke of Bedford, 

 Lords Sheffield, Suffield, and Albemarle, Coke, 

 Western, and many others, it was sure to ob- 

 tain the benefit of all the improved knowledge 

 of the day. In 1723 was instituted the Society 

 of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture 

 in Scotland; in 1749, the Dublin Agricultural 

 Society; in 1777, the Bath and West of Eng- 

 land Society; in 1784, the Highland Society 

 of Scotland; in 1793, the London Board of 

 Agriculture, and the Royal Agricultural So- 

 ciety of England in 1838. The last chiefly 

 through the exertions of Mr. W. Shaw and 

 Mr. Handley, Lord Spencer and the Duke of 

 Richmond. This, although supported entirely 

 by voluntary subscriptions, promises to be of 

 the highest advantage to agriculture, and by its 

 excellent arrangements, of which carefully 

 avoiding all political discussions is a promi- 

 nent feature, it now includes in its copious list 

 of members, men of all parties, who are united 

 not for the sake of indirectly forwarding party 

 objects, but for the improvement in all its im- 

 portant branches of practical agriculture. 

 The fate of the Board of Agriculture, which 

 expired about the year 1812, from the with- 

 drawal by government of the annual parlia- 

 mentary grant for its support, should operate 

 as a warning to all other agricultural societies ; 

 for this society failed, not from a want of 

 talent or of industry, but from its efforts being 

 paralysed, and its resources curtailed by its 

 being considered the society of a party, and 

 made the arena for the discussion and promul- 

 gation of political doctrines. From none of 

 these have arisen any splendid discoveries, for 

 such are not to be made in agriculture : there 

 can never arise, so far as we can foresee, any 

 Newton or Watt in this art ; but they have 

 effected and are accomplishing all that such 

 associations can be expected. They have oc- 

 casioned the collision of opinion, they have 

 stimulated the desire of improvement, and 

 they have promoted the general communica- 

 tion of its acquirements. The general im- 

 provements introduced into agriculture, under 

 the auspices of these valuable societies, have 

 been, amongst several others, 1. The general 

 introduction of green crops ; 2. The improve- 

 ment of agricultural machinery, such as the 

 drill, the thrashing-machine, the plough, <fcc.; 



3. Better breeds of all kinds of live stock ; 



4. Better and more numerous varieties of 

 seeds. 



Of the benefits conferred by other sciences 

 upon agriculture, by chemistry, botany, and 

 physiology. I shall hereafter have much to 

 say. They are branches of knowledge hitherto 

 too seldom combined with practical skill to 

 50 



may be formed from the perusal of De Cau- 

 dolle's Physiologic Vegetale. "It is certain," 

 as the writer of this has elsewhere observed, 

 that a cultivator of the soil should have a 

 knowledge of botany and of chemistry. With- 

 out the first he will be unable to understand 

 terms and observations that must occur in 

 every well-written work on his art; unable to 

 comprehend the nature and habits of the ob- 

 jects of his culture, or to render observations 

 which he makes intelligible to others or even 

 to himself. Chemistry is of as much, if not 

 greater, importance to him. The nature of 

 soils, of manures, of the food and functions of 

 plants, would all be unknown but from the 

 analyses which chemists have made. Science 

 can never supersede the dung-hill, the plough, 

 the spade, and the hoe ; but it can be one of 

 their best guides can be a pilot even to the 

 most experienced." (Baxter's Agricultural Li- 

 brary, 140.) 



Oif the literature of agriculture, I have little 

 to say in this place. From the days of Hesiod 

 until the sixteenth century, the authors upon 

 this art were very few ; but from that period to 

 the present, they have continued to increase'; 

 and its literature, if now collected, would form 

 a copious library. 



There have been professorships of agricul- 

 ture for some timi proposed at the Universities 

 of Oxford and Cambridge. There was one 

 appointed at Edinburgh in 1790, and the chair 

 is now (1841) filled by Mr. Low ; another at 

 Oxford in 1840, of which Mr. Daubeny is the 

 present holder. 



A prejudice too generally existed amongst 

 farmers against the agricultural knowledge 

 contained in books ; but now they are gene- 

 rally better educated, this prejudice will cease. 

 Ignorance is always bigoted and obstinate , 

 and it is the same mental sterility which made 

 thcn jealous of all new practices, that made 

 the Irish persist in fastening their horses to the 

 plough by their tails, until it was absolutely 

 prohibited by the government. The Irish said 

 in defence of their practice what some English 

 farmers say in defence of theirs, however erro- 

 neous, " My grandfather did well enough this 

 way." Such foolish observations amount? to 

 no more than this, " We will not trj' to im- 

 prove." This race of stagnant cultivators is 

 gradually disappearing; and those who are 

 succeeding them, we see reason to believe, are 

 more enlightened, and consequently more 

 ready to adopt improvements. We most 

 heartily rejoice at this ; and we hope to see 

 them more and more a class of reading men. 

 Practice must ever be their chief tutor, as in 

 all other arts; but likewise, as in all other 

 arts, that practice will always be the most cor- 

 rect in its details which is founded upon 

 scientific knowledge. (G. W. Johnson. Miller's 

 Gard. Diet, by Orr <$r Co.) 



[AGRICULTURE IN TUB UNITED STATES. 



A glance into the agricultural history of the 

 United States has been given in the introduc- 

 tion to this work. It will not therefore bo 



