12 



E S S A Y. 



concession to ignorance and indolence ; and in future 

 years, that which seems inexhaustible wealth of soil, will 

 be exhausted by the spendthrift style of agriculture 

 followed there. Already have the worn-out fields of 

 Virginia, come begging to New England for agriculturists 

 to restore their fecundity; agriculturists, with the 

 science and industry which a hard rocky soil engenders ; 

 with industry, produced by surmounting difficulties ; 

 science, called in to supply natural deficiencies. Not 

 those who have the most means, have accomplished the 

 greatest ends. The prisoner, who with a knife and bit 

 of box-wood made a perfect watch, accomplished more 

 than he might under less painful difficulties. Not that 

 country with the fines-t agricultural advantages, has 

 produced the best farmers. The South Sea Islander 

 has but to stretch forth his hand, and the overladen 

 bough satisfies his wants. If the soil and climate do 

 all, men do nothing, like spoiled children of fortune* 

 Those stones useless as they seem to be, have called 

 forth much mechanical skill. The lever and fulcrum 

 are thrown aside, and powerful engines lift ponderous 

 boulders from their bed of centuries, upon which the 

 plough-points have been blunted so long. In pulver- 

 izing the soil, in exposing its particles to the action of 

 the elements, the agriculturist becomes a chemist- 

 Whether he knows it or not, he is a chemist, with the 

 fields for his crucible, the sun and winds for a furnace and 

 blow-pipe. He mixes the soil with ingredients in such 

 proportions as the plants he cultivates requires, trusting 

 to the weather to form the proper disintegrations and 



* Liebig speaks of a place in Europe where the inhabitants live on milk 

 and sweet chestnuts ; the ease in the production of which, is the cause of 

 their intellectual weakness. 



