COMPOST il A NITRES. 47 



"VVe read concerning Adam, tlie progenitor of the human race, that 

 after he was created, even before his lovely and loving consort was 

 provided for him, that the Lord God planted a garden in Eden and 

 there put He man whom He had created, for to dress and to keep it 

 — thus implying, that a life of innocence, even, was not a life of indo- 

 lence, nor idleness, but a life of activity. Eden's garden was to 

 Adam a place of pleasure and delight, and yielded at first, no doubt, 

 spontaneously, the cereals and fruits upon which man subsisted. 

 This early account of the first man would seem clearly to demonstrate 

 that his first employment was horticulture, a vocation, than which, 

 none, even now, can be found more consonant with man's purity and 

 innocence. What place, even now, in man's degeneracy, does he 

 find more exquisite pleasure and delight than in a well-dressed and 

 well-kept garden of beautiful flowers and delicious fruits .' In order, 

 therefore to enjoy this paradisiacal delight and pleasure, designed for 

 man by his Creator, it is necessary that he should know how, not 

 only, to dress and keep the " planted garden," but how, also, to re- 

 store and replenish its exhausted condition, caused by a successive 

 cropping of fruits and grains and pulse. No virgin soil, however 

 richly stored with the elements of plants, can long be annually crop- 

 ped without becoming sterile and unproductive. Hence, it is fair to 

 infer, that to dress and to keep the first garden, signified more than 

 spading or ploughing, and cropping. As man multiplied upon, and 

 replenished the earth, he would come to see, as the process of soil 

 exhaustion was going on from year to year, as he observed the dimi- 

 nution of his harvest from season to season, that some mode of re-fer- 

 tilization must be resorted to, or else he must frequently emigrate, 

 and thus carry forward the sure work of impoverishing desolation, 

 until every fruitful field should be converted into a desert waste. 



Man, being both an observing and reflecting creature, would, most 

 certainly, come to a knowledge of manurial specifics, such as would, 

 if rightly applied, restore and even improve the original state of his 

 garden or farm. Thus from history may this process be demonstrated. 

 But in the course of time when the maximum of improvement in cul- 

 tivating the soil should be attained, as in Egypt, the work of emigra- 

 tion would be as sure to go on, as under the exhaustive and minimum 

 process. 



Very little can be found concerning the modes of cultivating and 

 fertilizing the field and garden until the dawn of Grecian history. It 

 is said of Anjeas that he was first among the Greeks to discover the 



