INTRODUCTION. XXXlX 



according to which they act, will occasion the rectifica- 

 tion of any errors which may have arisen from their 

 having been misapplied. The celebrated Davy, of Eng- 

 land, has already published a work upon Agricultural 

 Chymistry, from which I have borrowed many excel- 

 lent principles : others will do better than we have 

 done. 



Hitherto the physical sciences have been applied 

 to the other arts much more than to agriculture ; 

 many arts have, in our day, been originated or im- 

 proved, by their means, whilst the progress made in ag- 

 riculture has been very trifling. This difference ap- 

 pears to me to proceed from two causes : the fir'&t of 

 which is, that the greater part of the phenomena offered 

 to us by agriculture are the effects of the laws of vitali- 

 ty, which govern the functions of plants, and these laws 

 are still unknown to us ; whilst, in the arts which are ex- 

 ercised upon rude and inorganic matter, all is regulated, 

 all is produced, by the action either of physical laws only, 

 or of simple affinity, which are known to us. The 

 second cause is, that in order to apply the physical 

 sciences to agriculture, it is necessary to study their op- 

 erations profoundly, not only in the closet, but in the 

 fields. 



Though the proprietor of a large domain, of which I 

 have for a time directed the label's, I feel that the facts 

 which I have been able to collect upon various subjects, 

 are still insufficient for the establishment of indisputable 

 principles regarding them ; and in all such cases, I have 

 done nothing but present to the reader the doubts or the 

 simple probabilities which may have arisen from my ob- 



