14 



•*■* ESSAY. 



Much of the soil of New England is undrained, cold, 

 unproductive, wet, insoluble. But these marshes are 

 magazines of humus ; rich mines which the rivulets have 

 carried there from the decaying leaves of centuries of 

 vegetation, rich as the most fertile soil of the West, but 

 now the abode of reptiles, bearing nothing but coarse 

 grass, and none of the constituents of the blood, to pro- 

 duce which, Liebig says, is the true object of agricul- 

 ture; nothing to support animal life; nothing of the 

 iron, phosphorus and gluten of the human frame-work; 

 nothing to support the brain which moves the world. 

 It, is in this, that " Man may be called to be a co-worker 

 with the Infinite Mind ;" a promoter of the great plan, 

 which was commenced when God separated the waters 

 from the land. The noble consciousness of this power 

 over the soil, w T hich is little short of that of creation ; 

 the feeling that one has made land do its share toward 

 the support of civilization, renders the making of soil 

 thus easily, infinitely better than the seeking it ready 

 made. 



The soil of New England is hilly and stony, thin and 

 sandy, but it has done its fair share 'toward the 

 agricultural reputation of the nation. There are better 

 farmers in New England to-day, than in more favored 

 portions of the country. They are not generally men 

 of one idea. The various kinds of crops their farms 

 produce, drive them out of that, and they generally 

 know more or less of the theory of Rotation of Crops, 

 deep and shallow ploughing, application of fertilizers, 

 underdraing &c. These things are of very little interest 

 to the farmers of the West, who cultivate their 

 specialties, and whose soil will produce a crop, provided 

 the seed is sown. 



