10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



avor tliat many of the most insidious kinds of mildews, blights, 

 brands and smuts, arc structurally and typically our own. The 

 naturalist who would investigate these may find them only 

 analogous to foreign species, and from atmosj)herical conditions 

 requiring different treatment. We need then, an American 

 system of science, based upon American facts in nature. 



Our culture too should be American, suited to our soils, 

 climate, productions, to ovr fruits, grains, seeds, roots. I 

 would by no means discourage experiments with approved for- 

 eign kinds, yet such experiments should be not hastily or widely 

 adopted. Mr. David Landreth, an experienced seedsman, 

 finind among fifty-two specimens of turnips raised from seed 

 imported by him, but two varieties worthy of perpetuation. In 

 the subject of grass seeds, too, the knowledge of the actual 

 species can only prevent disappointment in sections where they 

 arc u-nfitted to the soil or latitude. Mr. Ives has shown in your 

 " Transactions" how coincident with the soils are the varieties 

 of apples and pears ; what English kinds succeed, to what 

 extent American varieties can be distributed through these 

 United States. The potato rot presents a similar aspect, and 

 in vain were the journals of Europe searched for the cause. 

 Even the fungi described by the mycologists abroad did not 

 occur on our own, and this insidious destroyer has baffled the 

 most careful experiments to detect the reason of its presence. 

 Is it a waste of time and study which has hitherto been 

 expended to find the cause and remedy? Then equally waste- 

 ful the patient hours of the kind and generous physician, who 

 has sought in vain for the reason and cure of ])ulmonary dis- 

 ease, or who has risked his own life to detect the seeds and 

 germs of the cholera, which affrights and devastates nations. 

 Equally so is the rot in the grape, which by the western vine- 

 grower has been thought identical. But agriculture with its 

 science must not borrow from abroad ; it must build schools of 

 American science, observation and research. Its soils are to 

 bo analyzed by its own chemists, its plants which grow upon 

 them analyzed and specified by its own botanists, and the fields 

 that are to be reaped should be sown with its own seeds. Is it 

 too much to expect that from resources as great naturally as 

 arc to be found elsewhere, products as mighty and great can 

 accrue ? 



