94 



GENESEE FARMER. 



April. 



thing neio, the use of lime, ashes, iron, bones, and 

 swamp muck, as 'special manures for fruit trees.' 



To say nothing of our official reports, which 

 can be seen in the volumes of Transactions of 

 the N. Y. State Agricultural Society, for 184?, 

 4, and 5, and our writings for this and other agri- 

 cultural papers, we have taught orally the "/or- 

 mw/fls" of the Horticulturist, (only witli more 

 care and accuracy,) for years, in half of the 

 counties of our native State. Within the last 

 three weeks the writer has delivered three public 

 lectures on agricultural chemistry to large audi- 

 ences in distant parts of Georgia. The simple, 

 the true, and the sublime doctrine of studying 

 the operations of Nature, and learning how to 

 supply to each living thing, whether vegetable 

 or animal, the precise elements required to form 

 its whole weight and substance, so far as they are 

 lacking, is a doctrine which the Horticulturist, 

 hitherto, has never taught. Admit the soundness 

 of this doctrine, and you yield the whole argu- 

 ment against our plan for the study of agricultu- 

 ral chemistry in all schools where those that till 

 the earth are to be educated. The subject is one 

 of inestimable importance ; and therefore we 

 bring out our well matured views once more, 

 and probably for the last time, in the Genesee 

 Farmer. 



Speaking of the Rensselaer County Agricul- 

 tural Society, in the March number of the Culti- 

 vator for 1844, the editor says : 



" After the delivery of the President's address. Gen. 

 ViKLE introduced a resolution commendatory of the project 

 of an Agricultural ticltool and Fatlern Farm ; and after some 

 pertinent remarks, introduced Dr. Lei: Chairman of the 

 Committee on Agriculture in the House of Assembly. 



" Dr. Lev: made some very interesting observations on 

 the necessity of scientific knowledge in connection v^ith ag- 

 riculture, designed chiefly to siiow the advantages which 

 might be derived from such an institution as had been spo- 

 ken of — an institution, he said, where should be taught 

 thoroughly and alike, the practice, tiie science, and the prof- 

 its of agriculture and its kindred branches. Me showed 

 that in proportion to the skill and intelligence by which 

 labor is directed, will be its productive earnings. He cited 

 Massachusetts as an example. No where, he said, were the 

 laboring classes so well educated as there. That State con- 

 tained one twenty-second part of the population of the 

 Union, and produced last year owe- hundred million dollars 

 worth of propertt/, viz; 80.00(1,000 of manufactures; ir>,- 

 000,000 of agricultural products ; and .3,000,000 from the 

 sea. If the other States, said Dr. Lki:, iiad produced prop- 

 erty in the same proportion to their population, the aggregate 

 would have been ttoeuty-two hundred millions of dollars !" 



The actual product of the country wa.s seven 

 hundred millions less than that sum. 



" Millions of days of hard labor are annually thrown away 

 in New York alone in a vain attempt to transmute one min- 

 eral into another. Our farmers are searching for some phi- 

 losopher's stone that will change lime into potash, potash 

 into magnesia, magnesia into flint, flint into clay, clay into 

 sulphur, sulphur into iron, iron into phosphorus, phospho- 

 rus into nitrogen, nitrogen into carbon, and carbon into 

 oxygen. When a man can make the half of a thing equal 

 to the wholef then he may raise a good crop of wheat where 

 his soil lacks one half of the elements of that grain." 



" Your committee believe it practicable to increase the 

 i»nnual products of our present rural industry 33^ per cent, 

 without the aid of one dollar of additional capital ; that is, 

 they believe that full one-third of all agricultural labor is 

 thrown away by its misapjilication. The uniform laws of 

 nature will not vary to accomodate the neeillcss ignorance 



of man. Hence, it follovvs that he must apply his labor in 

 strict conformity to the unerring laws that govern the 

 changes of matter, or toil on through life, giving two days 

 ivur/c for those necessaries and comforts, which an understand- 

 ing of the laws of nature would have secured to him in ex- 

 change for one diiy^s work. The v\ hole doctrine of eternaJ 

 hard work and penurious living as the best means of acqui 

 ring wealth or the comforts of life, your committee deem 

 unsound. Tlie inevitable effect of this popidar system is 

 to degrade rather than elevate our race. Mere muscular 

 lalwr, mere mechanical force, no matter how great its jiuwer, 

 without adequate knowledge to guide and direct it, is far 

 more likely to act wrong than right, for the simple reason 

 that there are <ive wrong ways to do almost any thing, to 

 one right way. 



" Has not the Creator of man manifested his approbation 

 of human efforts to acquire wisdom, even wordly wisdom, 

 by making the ignorant in all ages of the world the ser- 

 vants of the wise ? A knowledge of the arts of plowing, 

 sowing and reaping^ may do to wear out a productive farm ; 

 but something more is necessary to enable its owner to 

 give back annually to each of his cultivated fields, the pre- 

 cise elements removed by the harvest, and that too at the 

 smallest expense." — Dr. Lee's first Report to the Legisla- 

 ture, in 1844. 



We have found by sad e.xperience since the 

 above was written, that it is the "upper ten 

 thousand," more than the "million," who lack a 

 just appreciation of the value of science when 

 fairly and universally applied to rural affairs. 

 We have ever encountered the opposition of 

 these in our efforts to establish Free Schools, 

 and to secure to honest industry its due reward 

 in the Empire State. Whether successful or 

 unsuccessful paid or not paid, we»are bound to 

 advance the caiise of human elevation, by every 

 means in our power. 



We have never doubted the practicability of 

 adding seven hundred millions of dollars to the 

 value of the annual productive industry of this 

 great Republic. To achieve this result, its in- 

 tellect iTiust be more fully developed. Its schools 

 must be improved, and teach to our whole rural 

 population, those natural sciences which so 

 clearly and beautifully illustrates the transforma- 

 ttion of crude earth, air and water, into choice 

 fruit, bread, meat, milk wool and cotton. The 

 laws which God has made to govern these won- 

 derful transformations of matter must be patiently 

 studied, and not rendered the basis of barefaced 

 quackery. Few are aware how much the com- 

 munity suffers from quacks in statesmanship, 

 quacks in literature and science, quacks in law, 

 medicine and divinity, and quacks in agriculture 

 and the mechanical arts. From sheer selfish- 

 ness, those that write for the public press are 

 too apt to abstain from censuring what is cen- 

 surable, and commending what deserves general 

 support. Had the " upper ten thousand" been 

 in favor of granting Legislative aid to Agricul- 

 tural Chemi.stry, hundreds of able and influentiaf 

 journals would have given the measure a cordial 

 support. One of these days they will wake up 

 all of a sudden, like the Horticulturist, and come 

 out on our side of this question, — taking good 

 care not to intimate that what they claim as 

 original with them, has been prescribed and ad- 

 vocated for a quarter of a century by others. 



Georgia, March, 1847. D. L. 



