J. H. W. PAGE'S ADDRESS. 647 



straitened means and lack of knowledge. Experience has 

 proved that some of the original elements of fertility in much 

 of om- soil have been exhausted or diminished, so that many 

 of our lands refuse to produce their wonted crops. Experience 

 has also shown that to restore those elements and regenerate 

 the land, manures of various kinds are valuable agents. But 

 with all the knowledge and skill of our farmers in the modes 

 of cultivation and the application of manures, statistics show, 

 and it has come to be a generally admitted fact, that the aver- 

 age productiveness of lands long cultivated has diminished ; 

 and it is evident that something different from the ordinary 

 appliances must be resorted to in order to restore and keep up 

 the powers of production. 



Have we reason to believe that the progress of knowledge 

 will meet the farmer's need ? 



It has been truly said, that " in the first stages of civilization, 

 art precedes science, science follows. In the advanced stages 

 of civilization, science precedes art, art follows." I think that 

 in the history of our agriculture, we have passed through the 

 state where art precedes and science follows, and that we are 

 now in the transition state between that and the state where 

 science precedes art and art follows. 



In this country, science, as applicable to agriculture, is in its 

 infancy. But science, developed in this, as in other things, by 

 the exigencies of the times, has begun its work in the new field. 

 No man, probably, now doubts that the chemist can analyze 

 soils and tell with certainty their component parts, or that he 

 can analyze the products of the earth, wheat, corn, oats, tur- 

 nips, &c., and tell with certainty their component parts. 



Those facts, and the further facts that plants grow by feed- 

 ing, as animals do, and that the food of plants must be found 

 in the composition of the soil where they grow, in order to 

 their perfection, being admitted, it follows in-esistibly, that 

 science may open to the farmer most valuable mines of knowl- 

 edge. 



Few men in this country have yet devoted themselves to 

 this branch of study. Agricultural chemists among us are few. 

 I was assured recently, by good authority, that there were not 

 above five men in Massachusetts who had the ability to anal- 

 yze soils. Agricultural science has but just begun its work 



