VITAL AND PHYSICAL AGENTS. 71 



ton or wool must be supplied, and workmen who understand 

 the operation of the machinery, before the beautiful fabric is 

 wrought and fitted to adorn our bodies, or to protect them 

 from the vicissitudes of the seasons. 



Steam and water are the great agents in these processes, 

 but they are not the only agents, nor will they avail us unless 

 the necessary conditions are supplied. 



The vital power is much more wonderful and useful in its 

 operations, than any of the agents of dead matter ; but it will 

 not exert its force without its conditions, any more than steam 

 and water. When its conditions of activity are supplied, its 

 productions in their variety, beauty and utility, exceed those 

 of all other agents of the natural world. This power supplies 

 the manufacturing arts with nearly all their raw material, and 

 is emphatically the sustaining cause, in the hand of the Deity, 

 of the present order of nature. 



If it is important, then, that the mechanic and artizan should 

 spend years of study and labor to supply the necessary con- 

 ditions for the exertion of steam and water power, is it not 

 vastly more important, that the farmer should carefully study, 

 and faithfully supply the appropriate conditions for the exer- 

 cise of the vital power, that he may avail himself of its more 

 valuable and indispensable productions. What engineer would 

 expect to run steamboats and locomotives, with nothing but 

 fire and water ? What manufacturer could hope to spin and 

 weave by the mere force of hydrostatic pressure ? Or what 

 mechanic of any trade, would expect to produce a beautiful 

 and useful material, without carefully attending to the condi- 

 tions which are required for its production ? Why, then, 

 should the farmer expect a bountiful harvest, if he neglect to 

 supply the conditions required for the activity of the vital 

 power in the production of his crops ? 



In agriculture, as in the mechanic arts, we need the influ- 

 ence of example. We need some few farmers, in every portion 

 of the country, who shall present living examples to all around, 



