106 SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



as manure, for publication in the next volume of 

 the trancactions of the society. 

 Yours respectfully, 



ANDREW NICHOLS. 

 Danvers, December 26, 1840. 



SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE 



BY DR. A. NICHOLS. 



Agriculture will at some future time, we doubt 

 not, be reduced to an exact science. When the 

 quantity and proportion of each of the elementary 

 substances existing in any soil being known, the food 

 best suited to nourish the several vegetables culti- 

 vated ascertained, a given quantity of heat and mois- 

 ture, it may be presumed, will always produce re- 

 sults which may be calculated and predicted with 

 as much certainty as astronomical phenomena now 

 are. But how shall a work so desirable be accom- 

 plished? In the same manner, surely, that all other 

 sciences have been perfected, by scientific men, by 

 the head work of philosophers in their closets and 

 chemists in their laboratories, and not by practical 

 farmers in the field. These to be sure have an im- 

 portant part to act in this business. It is for them 

 to observe and collect facts for the scientific chemist 

 and naturalist to generalize and work into a system, 

 and it is for them also to try the system so formed, 

 and establish or overthrow it by actual experiments. 

 How was the art of navigation reduced to an exact 

 science. Not by the practical mariner, but by the 



