1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FAIlIk3I:R. 



339 



in the caae of business, intense anxiety, grief, 

 despondency, &c., are among the mo^t prolific 

 sources of dyspepsia, neuralgia, insanity, and 

 organic diseases of the brain and of the heart. 

 The Habitual Use of Alcoliolic Liquors, To- 

 bacco and Opium. 



Although these several articles may be val- 

 uable remedies in certain diseases, their value 

 is lost by habitual use, and they become the 

 causes of many diseases. Insanity, apoplexy, 

 epilepsy, and other diseases of the nervous 

 system ; dyspepsia, ulcerations of the stomach, 

 cancer of the stomach and liver, &c., are espe- 

 cially apt to result from their daily use. 

 Tlie Excessive Use of Tea and Coffee. 



There are many persons who cannot use 

 these very common articles, to any extent, 

 •without injury; and those who might use 

 them moderately, with comparative impunity, 

 are frequently more or less injured by an in- 

 temperate use of them. Dyspepsia, palpita- 

 tion, headache, and various nervous affections, 

 are the diseases most likely to result from the 

 excessive use of these articles. 



Intemperance in Eating. 



Eating too much, and eating improper food, 

 are very common causes of dyspepbia, gout, 

 diseases of the liver, constipation, diarrhoea, 

 &c., &c. 



Sexual Abuse. 



This, solitary and social — legal and illegal — 

 produces more chronic and incurable diseases 

 than all other causes combined. Do I state 

 the case too strongly ? I believe that every 

 candid physician who has practiced his profes- 

 sion during any considerable number of years, 

 and who has observed carefully the causes of 

 disease, will agree with me in such an asser- 

 tion. This evil — wide-spread, and destruc- 

 tive, far beyond what is commonly supposed — 

 predisposes to almost every disease by weak- 

 ening the general tone of the system, and thus 

 rendering the person more liable to be affected 

 by the ordinary exciting causes of disease ; and 

 besides, it is itself the exciting cause of a class 

 of diseases whose name is legion. 



For the New England Farmer, 

 AQBICULTUBAL SCIENCE AND COL- 

 LEGES. 



Agriculture is practical — not theoretical. 

 It can only be taught in the school-room, as 

 navigation is taught there, — simply in theory. 

 "W hen science and art have done their best 

 for the preparation of the soil," says Mr. Ever- 

 ett, "they have but commenced their opera- 

 tions in the lowest department of agricul- 

 ture." 



When we enter the field of agricultural re- 

 search, and study the mysteries of assimilation 

 — the laws of composition and decomposition — 

 the reduction ot inorganic mineral and vegeta- 

 ble substances to an organized condition that 

 shall raise lifeless nature into action, and 



transfer air, earth and water into bread, beef, 

 pork and wool, for food and clothing, we 

 shall behold the great mystery of production 

 and reproduction, and the unaccountable re- 

 sults of light and heat upon the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



The skilful agricultural chemist may mix 

 soils, and compound minerals, but with all his 

 apparatus, and with the aid of a thousand drug 

 stores, he cannot create a single element, Or 

 fabricate the smallest leaf in the vegetable 

 kingdom. The manufacture of a single kernel 

 of wheat, or corn, with living, reproductive 

 power, is as far beyond his power as the crea- 

 tion of a new world. 



That agriculture should advance to the state 

 of a physical science, no sensible man will deny. 

 Agriculture is an interest that men both pri- 

 vate and public are by far more inclined to 

 praise than to help by legislation or otherwise. 

 The professions of law, medicine, and theo- 

 ries have in all past legislation demanded and 

 received favor and support. This error has 

 its ground not so much in the merits of the 

 case, as in the fact that theory is restless and 

 active, — labor quiet and passive. I doubt 

 there was ever a people more free in their 

 praise of the great system that feeds and 

 clothes mankind than ours, and I had been led 

 to hope that the funds appropriated to the sev- 

 eral States by the Mortill Bill would be ap- 

 plied to the promotion of practical progres- 

 sive agriculture ; but by the manner in which 

 many of the States have already disposed of 

 this' fund, the old institutions of learning, 

 already rich and presumptive, will gain new 

 strength ; their laboratories will be enlarged ; 

 professors increased and a new stimulus 

 given to the old theories, that shall work a 

 detriment to the progress of agricultural sci- 

 ence. This will draw more sweat from the 

 laborer's brow ; lessen the charms of rural 

 life ; degrade and disgrace honest labor ; 

 throw a new halo of glory around the altar of 

 speculative philosophy ; leave the sublime work 

 of tilling the soil to "move on in the even tenor 

 of its way" in the trantformation of air, earth 

 and water into food and clothing for man and 

 beast ; revive soil analyses, with all its follies, 

 and demand a professorship and chemicals for 

 the purpose of "restoring exhausted fertility 

 and revealirg and expounding the laws of 

 vegetable physiology," to teach the practical 

 tiller of the soil how to cultivate his fields 

 with drugs and chemicals by the "arts and 

 sciences." 



I would not assume that science is not a 

 co-worker with man in conducting agriculture 

 upon a wise and practical basis. I object to 

 the application of this fund, or any part of it, 

 to the dissemination and support of a false 

 theory and a false philosophy. Science, in 

 its primary relation to the cultivation of the 

 soil is practical and effective. The transfor- 

 mation of the organized materials and ele- 

 ments of earth into food and clothing is sci- 



