4 NORTH-CAROLINA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



the physical condition of the soil, the measures which ought 

 to be adopted to prevent the operation of injurious agents, 

 as frost, drought, depredations of insects, etc. 



"When experiments and observation have satisfied the far- 

 mer respecting the composition of wheat, corn, and of the 

 soil in which they are to be planted, he has only to secure the 

 proper mechanical condition of the soil, and put it into that 

 state which is best adapted to their constitution. From the 

 foregoing statement, it is evident that the range of scientific 

 enquiry is limited to an experimental circle. The farmer is 

 not required to go out of that area to determine the true 

 theory of agriculture, to perfect the art or the practical part 

 of the business. 



3. The following report is based on the preceding views 

 relative to the scope or range of agricultural enquiry. The 

 planter or farmer may speculate on vital or chemical forces, 

 and form such theories upon those recondite forces as best 

 comport with his knowledge of facts and principles ; yet, as 

 has been said already, practical enquiries do not extend to 

 them ; it only demands a range of knowledge which is 

 bounded by experimental researches, and the deductions 

 which legitimately follow therefrom. 



It is therefore f rue, that enquiries into the nature of the 

 ceil force or vital ibrcQ are not excluded from the philosophy 

 of vegetation, but these ultimate interrogatories have no prac- 

 tical utility, so far certainly as the principles of culture are 

 concerned. From these remarks, however, it should not be 

 inferred that agriculture requires only an extremely limited 

 range of knowledge that its connections with other sciences 

 are distant and doubtful. So far is this from being true, that 

 it may be shown that it is intimately related to, and de- 

 pendent upon, several of the important branches of knowl- 

 edge. We have seen, for example, how important chemistry 

 is to agriculture. To this it is wholly indebted for its won- 

 derful progress in modern times. Climatology also is closely 

 related to agriculture, inasmuch as a knowledge of the influ- 

 ence of light and heat, air and winds, height and depth, must 

 influence the farmer in his selection of crops for tillage, and 



