III. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANURING ORCHARDS 



January, 1848. 



HHHE culture of the soil may be viewed in two very different as- 

 -1- pects. In one, it is a mean and ignorant employment. It is a 

 moral servitude, which man is condemned to pay to fields perpetu- 

 ally doomed to bear thorns and thistles. It is an unmeaning routine 

 of planting and sowing, to earn bread enough to satisfy the hunger 

 and cover the nakedness of the race. And it is performed in this 

 light, by the servants of the soil, in a routine as simple, and with a 

 spirit scarcely more intelligent than that of the beasts which draw 

 the plough that tears open the bosom of a hard and ungenial 

 earth ! 



What is the other aspect in which agriculture may be viewed ? 

 Very different indeed. It is an employment at once the most natural, 

 noble, and independent that can engage the energies of man. It 

 brings the whole earth into subjection. It transforms unproductive 

 tracts into fruitful fields and gardens. It raises man out of the un- 

 certain and wild life of the fisher and hunter, into that where all the 

 best institutions of society have their birth. It is the mother of all 

 the arts, all the commerce, and all the industrial employments that 

 maintain the civilization of the world. It is full of the most pro- 

 found physical wonders, and involves an insight into the whole his- 

 tory of the planet, and the hidden laws that govern that most com- 

 mon and palpable, and yet most wonderful and incomprehensible 

 substance matter ! There has never yet lived one who has been 

 philosopher enough to penetrate farther than the outer vestibules of 



