194 STATE OF AGRICULTURE 



has been brought to produce from four to ten ears on a 

 stalk, and, where the cUmate and the soil are suitable, 

 as in the Western States, has added at least fifty per 

 cent, to the productiveness of the corn crop. This is 

 a field of improvement in which every farmer may be 

 a laborer, and with the happiest resalts. To improve 

 his seeds requires no extra capital : a little care and 

 attention to the qualities of his growing and ripened 

 crops is all that is requisite ; and, whether he avails 

 himself of the opportunity for improvement or not, no 

 good farmer can avoid having the feasibility of so doing- 

 repeatedly forced upon him by the difference in size 

 and productiveness of the several plants 



Another and third cause of the low state of agricul- 

 ture is a too general want of knowledge, among farm- 

 ers, of the scientific principles which govern agricul- 

 ture. That every farmer should be a thorough chemist; 

 and be able to explain all the laws that govern matter, 

 and, in doing so, trace to their source the elements of 

 vegetable and animal nutrition, is not what is to be 

 expected ; and so with the kindred sciences of botany 

 and entomology. Still he should be able, and with 

 very little attention may be able, to go through a suffi- 

 ciently accurate analysis of soils, and be familiar with 

 many of the minute as well as important changes that 

 matter undergoes in the transformation from inert atoms 

 to organized life. Constantly among plants, and com- 

 pelled to be familiar with insects, some of both of 

 which he numbers among his worst enemies, he is in 

 part a botanist and entomologist by necessity ; and, 

 were his observations properly directed, there is nothing 

 to hinder, but much to render, farmers the most suc- 

 cessful discoverers in these sciences. Works which 

 would give a proper coarse to his inquiries may be 

 found at almost every bookstore ; and it is not too much 

 to hope that volumes will be found in almost every 

 common school and district library, which will awaken 

 inquiry, and direct observers in the successful pursuit 



