MR. braman's address. 21 



the face of the earth, and produce results wliich would now 

 seem almost like the effects of supernatural power. 



The contempt with which some interested in the progress of 

 agriculture, and possessing intelligence, look upon the preten- 

 sions of chemistry as an assistant to the farmer is quite aston- 

 ishing. There is not a single process of vegetation that does 

 not involve chemical laws and principles. The soil and the 

 atmosphere are a great laboratory in which nature is constantly 

 performing changes that professors of the chemical art are 

 endeavoring to imitate by those experiments, in \vhich the laws 

 of science are attempted to beset forth to their pupils. Until 

 a person can prove that the agriculturist has no occasion to as- 

 certain the elements and qualities of the soil which he culti- 

 vates, or the ingredients which enter into the structure of the 

 plants he rears, or the nature of those processes by which the 

 elements contribute to the growth of vegetation, he cannot 

 prove that chemical science is not a most valuable assistant in 

 the art of tilling the ground. Why, all the practical know- 

 ledge which centuries of observations have collected on the 

 modes of tillage, is the embodiment of so many facts in agri- 

 cultural chemistry, upon which farther investivation in the 

 science has thrown explanation. Chemistry as applied to this 

 art is a collection of facts and explanation, which are them- 

 selves only additional facts, relating the best methods of securing 

 the greatest quantity of the most perfect products from groun..'s 

 of a certain quantity and quality, and it is nothing after all, 

 but an increase of that very kind of knowledge, without which 

 a farmer could net perform a single operation in the line of his 

 employment. Is any man frightened at this ? then let him 

 take his place among the astrologers and star-gazers, and regu- 

 late his tillage by the almanack and the moon. 



5. The situation and employment of the farmer have not 

 hitherto furnished him with that stimulus to mental activity 

 and effort, which has been applied to many other classes. 

 Agricultural operations are so simple as to require no great ex- 

 •ercise of ingenuity and length of practice to learn to perform 

 them. The spade, the plough, ihe scythe, the sickle, demand 

 no long apprenticeship, little teaching and a small degree of 



