1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



25 



that we had just turned from the contemplation 

 of a beautiful painting." 



We abbreviate this noble production with great 

 reluctance, but are entirely unable to give it all. 

 It should be published in cheap pamphlet form, 

 and a copy preserved not only in every farm- 

 house in the land, but in the counting-room of 

 every merchant in the land, — for after all, it is he 

 who needs it most. We suggest, also, that the 

 Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Ag- 

 riculture should place it in the compilation which 

 we understand they contemplate issuing. We 

 gladly yield our usual editorial space, and will 

 give all we can find room for. 



AGEICULTUBE EEQUIRES THE RESOURCES OF SCI- 

 ENCE AND ART. 



But although Agriculture is clothed with an 

 importance which rests upon the primitive consti- 

 tution of our nature, it is very far from being the 

 simple concern we are apt to think it. On the 

 contrary, there is no pursuit in life, which not 

 only admits, but requires for its full develop- 

 ment, more of the resources of science and art, 

 — none which would better repay the pains be- 

 stowed upon .an appropriate education. There 

 is, I believe, no exaggeration in stating that as 

 great an amount and variety of scientific, physi- 

 cal, and mechanical knowledge is requii-ed for the 

 most successful conduct of the various operations 

 of husbandry, as for any of the arts, trades, or 

 professions. I conceive, therefore, that the Leg- 

 islature and the citizens of the great State over 

 which you, sir, (Governor King,) so worthily pre- 

 side, have acted most wisely in making j^rovision 

 for the establishment of an institution expressly 

 for agricultural education. There is a demand 

 for systematic scientific instruction, from the very 

 fii'st step we take, not in the play-farming of gen- 

 tlemen of leisure, but in the pursuit of husband- 

 ry as the serious business of life. 



A NEW WORLD OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH. 



But when science and art have done their best 

 for the preparation of the soil, they have but com- 

 menced their operations in the lowest department 

 of agriculture. They have dealt thus far only 

 with what we call lifeless nature, though I apply 

 that word with reluctance to the generous bosom 

 of our mother Earth, from which everything that 

 germinates draws its life and appropriate nourish- 

 ment. Still, however, we take a great step up- 

 ward, when, in pursuing the operations of hus- 

 bandry, we ascend from mineral and inorganic 

 substances to vegetable organization. We now 

 enter a new world of agricultural research ; the 

 mysteries of assimilation, growth and decay ; of 

 seed-time and harvest ; the life, the death, and 

 the production of the vegetable world. Here we 

 still need the light of science, but rather to ex- 

 plore and reveal than to imitate the operations 

 of nature. The skilful agricultural chemist can 

 mingle soils and compound fertilizing phosphates; 

 but, with all his apparatus and all his re-agents, 

 it is beyond his power to fabricate the humblest 

 leaf. He can give you, to the thousandth part 

 of a grain, the component elements of wheat, — 

 he can mingle those elements in due proportion 



in his laboratory, — but to manufacture a single 

 kernel, endowed with living, reproductive power, 

 is as much beyond his skill as to create a world. 

 Vegetable life, therefore, requires a new course 

 of study and instruction. The adaptation of par- 

 ticular plants to particular soils and ihcir treat- 

 ment, on the one hand, and, on the other, their 

 nutritive powers as food for man and the lower 

 animals, the laws of germination and growth, the 

 influences of climate, the possible range of im- 

 provability in cereal grains and fruits, are topics 

 of vast importance. The knoAvledge — for the 

 most part empirical — already possessed, upon 

 these points, is the accumulation of the ages 

 which have elapsed since the foundation of the 

 world, each of which has added to the list its 

 generous fruit, its nutritive grain, its esculent 

 root, its textile fibre, its brilliant tincture, its spi- 

 cy bark, its exhilarating juice, its aromatic es- 

 sence, its fragrant gum, its inflammable oil — 

 some so long ago that the simple gratitude of in- 

 fant humanity ascribed them to the gift of the 

 gods, while others have been brought to the 

 knowledge of the civilized world in the histori- 

 cal period, and others have been presented to 

 mankind by our own continent. No one can tell 

 when wheat, barley, rye, oats, millet, apples, pears, 

 and plums, were first cultivated in Europe ; but 

 cherries and peaches were brought from the Black 

 Sea and Persia in the time of the Roman repub- 

 lic ; the culture of silk was introduced from the 

 East in the reign of Justinia ; cotton and sugar 

 became extensively used in Europe in the middle 

 ages ; maize, the potato, tobacco, cocoa, and the 

 Peruvian bark, are the indigenous growth of this 

 country. Tea and cofi'ee, though productions of 

 the Old World, were first known in Western Eu- 

 rope about two centuries ago ; and India rubber 

 and gutta percha, as useful as any but the cereals, 

 in our own day. 



THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS ATTACHED TO THE SER- 

 VICE OF MAN. 



But there is still another department of Agri- 

 culture, which opens the door to research of a 

 higher order, and deals with finer elements, — I 

 mean that which regards the domestic animals 

 attached to the service of man, and which are of 

 such inestimable importance as the direct part- 

 ners of his labors, as furnishing one of the great 

 articles of his food, and as a principal resource 

 for restoring the exhausted fertility of the soil. 

 In the remotest ages of antiquity, into which the 

 torch of history throws not the faintest gleam of 

 light, a small number, selected from the all but 

 numberless races of the lower animals, were 

 adopted by domestication into the family of man. 

 So skilful and exhaustive was this selection, that 

 three thousand years of experience — during which 

 Europe and America have been settled by civil- 

 ized races of men — have not added to the num- 

 ber. It is somewhat humbling to the pride of 

 our rational nature to consider how much of oitr 

 civilization rests on this partnership ; how help- 

 less we should be, deprived of the horse, the ox, 

 the cow, the sheep, the swine, the goat, the ass, 

 the reindeer, the dog, the cat, and the various 

 kinds of poultry. In the warmer regions, this 

 list is enlarged by the llamas, the elephant, and 

 the camel, the latter of which, it is not unlikely, 

 will be extensively introduced in our own south-. 



