760 [AssEHBi:? 



This Lucerne is said to be superior to that of Europe or America 



Subjects adopted for the next meeting — Agricultural Schools and 

 Experimental Farms. The Club then adjourned. 



H. MEIGS, Secretary. 



R. L. Pell, of Pelham, rn the Chair. 



January 4th, 1848. 



Mr. Meigs said that among the old writers upon agriculture, Jethro 

 Tull, of England, who wrote in the fore part of the last century, 

 still maintains a good standing. I translate from the Cours D' Agri- 

 culture of the Count De Gasparin, published in Paris in 1847, a copy 

 of which is among the valuable volumes presented by Alexander 

 Vattemare to the American Institute, the following view of Tull's 

 theory. 



The principle of Tuil was, that the earth reduced to fine particleS; 

 was the principal nourishment of plants; that the salts contributed 

 to attenuate the particles, water to extend the parts, and air and 

 heat to give it a suitable activity, but that still the earth always re- 

 mained the essential partj manure operating only to divide the mol- 

 ecules of the earth by fermentation. Therefore, admitting that the 

 more we divide the particles of the earth, and the more we multiply 

 its interior pores, the more we augment the surface of these mole- 

 cules, so much the more do we bring the earth in contact with the 

 plant, and render it the more fertile. That cultivation consists in 

 working soil often, and maintaining its pulverized condition. That 

 these workings must be incessant during the vegetation of the plant, 

 and that manure is but a cosily auxiliary, which we ought to repu- 

 diate, it being more advantageous to augn>ent fertility by labor than 

 by manure. First, because it is often difficult to get a sufficient 

 quantity of it, for the straw on twenty acres is hardly enough to 

 manure one acre. Second, because plants raised with manure have 

 not that agreeable taste Avhich those have which are raised without 

 it. Third, manures attract insects to the plants, and they injure 

 them. But we must work, and work over and over again, to raise 

 good crop?. 



Mr. Meigs read some other interesting articles which he had 

 translated from the works presented by M. Vattemare, which will be 

 published next week. 



