NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



369 



Jdoiufy) rCo c^^M^i^^i?Uy 



Professor Johnston was born in Kilmarnock, Scot- 

 land, and was educated in Glasgow University. lie 

 paid particular attention to the study of chemistry, 

 and he improved himself in agricultural knowledge 

 by travelling in various parts of Europe. At the 

 foundation of Durham University, in England, he 

 was appointed professor of chemistry and mineralogy. 

 He was also professor of chemistry of the Highland 

 Agricultural Society of Scotland. His lectures on 

 agricultural chemistry and geology, and various 

 other works on agricultural science, have been circu- 

 lated very extensively in this country, and in the 

 most enlightened parts of Europe. 



In 1849, he delivered the address at the annual 

 fair of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society. In the 

 winter following, he delivered a course of lectures 

 before the society, and the members of the legisla- 

 ture, on the relation of science to practical agricul- 

 ture. He also delivered a course of lectures before 

 the Lowell Institute in this city, and before the 

 Smithsonian Institute at Washington. 



Professor Johnston ranks among the first scientific 

 agriculturists, and his writings are well adapted to 

 illustrate and promote correct practical agriculture; 

 and wc are pleased that they arc so widely diffused, 

 and that arrangements are making to circulate them 

 still more extensively. C. !M. Saxton, New York, 

 has recently published, in a neat volume, the Lectures 

 on Practical Agriculture before the N. Y. State Ag- 

 ricultural Society. It should have a place in the 

 library of every agriculturist. 



Professor Johnston is still in the best stage of life 

 for collecting and disseminating useful knowledge, in 

 a discriminating and successful manner ; and we 

 hope that the world will be further enlightened by 

 his future labors. 



FORESTS AND STREAMS. 



The remarkable man Ilumboklt has reduced it 

 almost to a demonstration, tliat the streams of a 

 country fail in proportion to the destruction of its 

 timber. And, of course, if the streams fail, our 

 season will be worse ; it m\ist got drier in jjropor- 

 tion. Every body knows, who can number twenty 

 years back, that the watercourses have failed con- 

 siderably, and that the seasons have been getting 

 drier and drier every year. II\imboldt, siicaking of 

 the valley of Arg\ia, ^'cnezucla, says, the lake re- 

 cedes as agriculture advances, until large plantations 

 of sugar-cane, banana, and cotton- trees were estab- 

 lished on its banks, which, (banks,) year after year, 

 were farther from them. After the separation of 

 that i)rovince from Spain, and the decline ot agricul- 

 ture, amid tlie desolating wars which swept over this 

 beautiful region, the process of clearing was arrested, 

 the old lands grew up in trees with a rajjidity com- 

 mon in the tropics, and in a few years the inhab- 

 itants were alarmed by a rise of the water, and the 

 inundation of their plantations. 



T-et a man be treated as a brute, and ho will be- 

 come more brutish than a brute ; but treat him as a 

 rational being, and he will show that he is so. 



