194 GEOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY OF SOILS. 



cure it done by some scientific chemist, may compare its 

 composition with that of fertile soils, and the exact mode of 

 improvement will be seen at a single glance. This excludes 

 all empyricism, all hap-hazard experiment, all unnecessary ex- 

 pense,* and, for a trifling sum, will ensure complete success. 

 The grand desideratum, in this, as well as in every other 

 art, is the the union of thcorij and practice. Agriculture 

 should not be pursued as a mere art, a routine of mechani- 

 cal drudgery, but the scientific principles upon which the 

 success of the art must ultimately depend, should be thor- 

 oughly understood by every farmer. 



Why should the agricultural community be the only class 

 who are not educated in the science of their profession ? 

 Why should they suffer their art, the first and the most im- 

 portant of all others, to rank lowest in the scale ?t 



It is not expected, that every farmer will have a labora- 

 tory, furnished with all the materials necessary to a complete 

 and accurate analysis of his soils. This must be left to a 

 few practical chemists, but the rising generation of farmers, 

 may very easily obtain such knowledge, as will enable them 



* For the trifling sum of ten, or at most, twenty dollars, almost any 

 farmer can ascertain the composition of any of his fields, and have the 

 mode of improvement pointed out. This, without doubt, would be 

 more than returned to him in a single season, and would be increas- 

 ed in tenfold proportion in succeeding years. Were half the time 

 and money, which have been wasted in useless experiments, without 

 any scientific principles to gnide, expended for the purpose of analy- 

 sis, our farmers would, long ere this, have had the satisfaction of see- 

 ing their farms gradually, but surely, arriving to a state of fertility, 

 of which they had never dreamed ; and instead of going West to seek 

 more fertile lands, would actually be able to compete with the West- 

 ern farmer in any market under lieaven. 



t If, with the rapidity of improvement among every other class, 

 our farmers do not take care of their interests, by improving their 

 minds and studying their professions, they must be looked down up- 

 on, and justly too, as the lowest in the scale of being; as incapable of 

 a higli state of civilization. 



