DEBT AND SUCCESS. 7 



and their calling should be made intellectual. Any calling 

 that is followed by intellectual men is at once clothed with 

 dignity, respectability and power. Ignorance is our common 

 enemy. Farm labor, as labor merely, is not attractive. But 

 to intellectual men, the field of examination, of experiment, 

 of investigation, of test, is as large and as inviting as that 

 occupied by Agassiz and his associates. 



The extent to which we shall apply science to practical 

 agriculture is the measure of the earth's practical capacity to 

 support human beings. The desolation and depopulation of 

 the countries east and south of the Mediterranean may be due 

 to ignorance of an immutable law. If at the close of one har- 

 vest the land is less fertile than it was at the close of the pre- 

 ceding harvest, and so on, the end will be depopulation and 

 waste ; but if at the end of one harvest the land is more fer- 

 tile than it was at the end of the preceding harvest, and so on, 

 the results are wealth, prosperity, numbers, power. This 

 truism is for individuals and for states. 



