22 MR. pkrrt's address. 



good a plough, can hold it with as firm a hand, and hoe as well, 

 and I can therefore raise as good a crop of corn ;' his ambition 

 was a little moved on the subject ; he spared neither pains nor 

 labor and generally got as large a crop as his neiglibor. But it 

 cost him so much more, that he was a loser while the other re- 

 ceived an encouraging profit, and truly ivorked himself out of an 

 estate while his neighbor worked himself into one. Had he 

 understood the principle of vegetation, he would have cultivated 

 grass; for the produce of some of the more valuable kinds his 

 farm was peculiarly adapted, and the result would have been as 

 happy as in consequence of his ill-judged practice it was ad- 

 verse. This is only a single instance among many, but it shows 

 conclusively that a knowledge of the constituent parts of the 

 soil in each field and of their combinations, together with what 

 each kind of grain, vegetable and grass require, is indispensable 

 if men will manage their farming concerns to good advantage, 

 and obtain the largest crops with the least possible labor. 



The want of fuller information on this subject is attended 

 with another evil. It renders the details of successful culture, as 

 published in your reports, less useful. For of v/hat advantage 

 can the account of an agricultural experiment be, if the field 

 taken for its repetition be composed of different elements, or of 

 the same elements differently proportioned, or held in different 

 combination or solution. The want of discrimination here, has 

 often brought such reports into discredit, and occasionally sub- 

 jected the persons who made them to suspicions in respect to 

 veracity, — and not in a few instances involved men in unpro- 

 ductive labor and expense essentially injurious to them. 



There are indeed so many reasons why such an analysis should 

 be made, I am constrained to express it as my opinion that it 

 should early engage the attention of this Society. 



Something of this has been virtually done under the patronage 

 of the state, — enough to show how intimately connected the sub- 

 ject is with the best success of agriculture, enough to convince 

 those who have looked at the result, of the enlightened wisdom 

 of our government in the provision which they made for the sur- 

 vey of the state, and enough to manifest the science and enter- 



