DEVOTED TO AGIIICDTjTUBE, HORTICULTUBE, ATTD KIIsTDRED ARTS. 



NEW SERIES. 



Boston, January, 1868. VOL. 11. -NO. 1. 



R. P. EATON & CO., PuBLisnERS, 

 Office, Z\. Meuciiants' How. 



MONTHLY. 



SIMON BROWN, ) ^^^^^^^ 

 S. FLETCHEll, i J^»"ors. 



fl" 



THE NEW YEAR. 



HE year of 

 our Lord, 

 1868, is 

 now open- 

 ing upon 

 us. We 

 have turn- 

 ed a new 

 page in the 

 history of 

 our lives. 

 What shall 

 be inscrib- 

 ed upon it? 

 Shall it be 



written over like the copy books of the years 

 that have gone by, with the mottoes and pro- 

 verbs that have come down to us from past 

 generations, — the heir-looms that we have in- 

 herited from our fathers, — the stereotyped 

 maxims, the crystalized thoughts of other 

 times? 



These embodied the wisdom that pervaded 

 the mind of humanity when the limits of knowl- 

 edge were much narrower than they are now ; 

 when the fields of science were undeveloped, 

 and the true principles of their cultivation 

 were unknown ; when superstition occupied 

 the place of living faith, resting on reason 

 and proof. Many of these maxims serve only 

 to fetter the mind and obstruct its progress in 

 the pathway of improvement. The present is 



an age of progress. New light is breaking in 

 upon the human mind. Research and inves- 

 tigation are revealing new facts and new prin- 

 ciples. What Avas obscure and doubtful is 

 becoming clear and distinct. The empirical 

 practices and beliefs of the past, are giving 

 way to the teachings of science, and the 

 demonstrations of reason. The applications 

 of science and art are revolutionizing the 

 thoughts, the works, and the manners of men, 

 are opening new channels for commerce and 

 new fields for human industry, and subjecting 

 the forces of nature to the service of human- 

 ity. Daily calls are made upon the thinker, 

 the inventor, and the manufacturer, for new 

 means, new combinations, new applications of 

 science, and new implements of art. 



The cultivator of the soil is called upon for 

 new materials, and better methods, and more 

 efficient instrumerits of culture, and this indi- 

 cates the necessity of a more thorough knowl- 

 edge of the nature and capacity of the soil, 

 and all the agencies concerned in the growtli 

 and perfection of vegetable and animal life, 

 and of the means by which it may be pro- 

 tected from injurious and destructive influen- 

 ces. Many things are'yet to be learned with 

 respect to all these subjects. New revelations 

 are yet to be made. It may be we are at- 

 tempting too much in certain directions, and 

 hence find our labor unprofitable. Perhaps 

 we are trying to cultivate plants and varieties 

 of animals that are not suited to our soil, and 



