108 SCIENCE OP AGRICULTURE, 



trade, between Salem and eastern ports, and have 

 instructed him how to steer that old schooner to 

 Baltimore with safety to himself and his freighters? 

 No. But a school-boy, who had never been aboard 

 a ship, but who had studied well the science of nav- 

 igation, could instruct that old seaman how he might 

 find his way not only to Baltimore, but to the remo- 

 test island in the China seas, or any other spot in 

 the known world. 



So it is in agriculture. There are many old 

 farmers, who, from long experience have acquired a 

 valuable store of knowledge concerning the manage- 

 ment of their own farms, which must die with them, 

 for they cannot communicate this knowledge to oth- 

 ers, so as to qualify those others to manage equally 

 well other soils which may be differently constitu- 

 ted from their own. But whenever agriculture shall 

 become a science, then the school-boy, who has un- 

 derstandingly studied it, will be able to teach the 

 practical cultivator how he must manage his lands to 

 insure the largest crops. Until agriculture be made 

 a science, all experiments, those for which premiums 

 are offered and paid by our agricultural societies 

 among the rest, must be of uncertain value. Others 

 attempting to imitate those processes of tillage which 

 have proved most valuable in other hands, fail to 

 realize the same results, they know not why. The 

 language used in stating these experiments is not 

 definite. Take for example, one statement of the 

 management, &,c. of a crop of barley, in the Essex 

 Agricultural Society's Transactions, selected at ran- 

 dom, it being the first on which I cast my eye, on 

 .taking up the book to find something to illustrate the 

 position stated above. 



" The land on which it grew is a clayey loam." 



What are its constituents? does it contain the salts 

 of lime, potash, soda, magnesia ? 



The year previous " the land was planted with corn 

 and potatoes, a shovel full of manure was put in the hill." 



Of what elements did this manure consist? 



