Ill 



lump of pm*e clay, and imagine, if you can, how long it would 

 take the ordinary processes of cultivation to make it produc- 

 tive ! But sand — river sand, salt sand — will open its unwil- 

 ling jaws. It is not a. mojiu re in itself; but it is the pioneer 

 opening a pathway for the forces that shall make the wilder- 

 ness blossom as the rose. Dr. Nichols tells us that a plant is 

 like an infant as respects its preparation of food. It has no 

 teeth to masticate, no salivary glands to pour out diluting fluids 

 to render digestable its rocky aliment; it can receive it only in 

 a liquid, soluble form. And Dr. Dana tells us that th6 salts 

 and earths form voltaic batteries with the roots of groicing plants, 

 to be brought in contact with the " salts " and '' earths " of a 

 clay bed so as to get the benefit of the " voltaic battery," un- 

 less you first open a way for them by some process as natural 

 and practicable as that of the fi-eest use of sand ? 



But, as before mentioned, the prospects before the farmer, 

 and consequently the county itself, are bright and full of en- 

 couragement. When the nation's last fight is to be fought, 

 and her last victory won, we have no possible means of fore- 

 telling ; but long after that time shall have come, the triumphs 

 of willing science over unwilling soils will be but just begin- 

 ning. So long as our own county can show such farmers as 

 Loring, and Suttou, and the Wares, father and son, and Ives, 

 and Page — the acting and ex-Presidents of the Agricultural 

 Society, with many, many others all ready and anxious to fol- 

 low where our distinguished county chemist. Dr. J. K. Nichols, 

 leads ; so long old Essex may rightfully boast, not only of 

 what it is, but of what it is to he. And we by no means admit 

 that this is, as the British Keviews say, rearing a fictitious cap- 

 ital of renown which our posterity are to pay ofi"; for the pres- 

 ent generation, of Essex farmers, we believe, will do a good shar& 

 of it themselves. 



Interesting communications to me from Mr. Kogers and 

 Dr. Merriam, members of the Committee, whose valuable 

 suggestions I have incorporated in this report, sustain me in 

 my views ; and they urge particularly a competition among the 



