PREFACE. 7 



same occupation in most parts of Europe. He is generally 

 the owner, as well as the occupier, of the soil which he culti- 

 vates ; is not burdened with tithes ; his taxes are light, and 

 the product of his labors will command more of the necessa- 

 ries, comforts, and innocent luxuries of life, than similar 

 efforts would procure in any other part of the globe. 



Not only have the inducements to agricultural improve- 

 ments in the United States been powerful, but of late a 

 corresponding effect has been the result. We cannot better 

 make this evident than by a quotation from ' Remarks of the 

 Rev. M. Allen, of Pembroke, county of Plymouth, state of 

 Massachusetts, in the Legislature of that state, on a proposition 

 to renew an Act for the Encouragement of Agriculture and 

 Manufactures,' published in the New England Farmer, vol. 

 xii. p. 298. 



' It has already been suggested that the soil of the county 

 from which I came is not the most favorable for agricultural 

 pursuits. The expense of cultivation there is thought by 

 some to exceed the amount to be derived from it. This was 

 the prevalent opinion before the introduction of modern im- 

 provements. The operations of an Agricultural Society 

 have proved that labor and skill can make even despised 

 soils productive. I suppose that ten bushels of rye to the 

 acre, twenty of Indian corn, one ton of English hay, and 

 two hundred bushels of potatoes, were formerly considered 

 as average crops. Since premiums have been offered, we 

 have claims for from forty to fifty bushels of rye, from one 

 hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty-two of Indian 

 corn, from three to four tons of English hay, and from four 

 to five hundred bushels of potatoes. Our improvements 

 have not been confined to single acres ; in several instances 

 the products of entire farms have been more than quad- 

 rupled.' 



The advances of agriculture of late years have not been 

 uniform, but accelerated; its progress has been in what mathe- 

 maticians would call a geometrical ratio. Every step has 

 furnished means for quickening the pace and extending the 

 reach of the next step, and every path has led to a longer 

 and wider avenue of improvement. The time may come in 

 which science may impress into the service of the cultivator 

 every element or substance which constitutes the globe we 

 inhabit — the world of matter become completely subservient 

 to the world of mind. Then and not till then will Agricul- 



