INTRODUCTION. 131 
effort was put forth by the legislature. An appropriation was made of eight 
thousand dollars annually, for five years, to the State Agricultural Society, the 
American Institute of New-York, and societies in the other counties in the state ; 
on condition, however, that they should respectively devote to the improvement 
of agriculture, funds, otherwise acquired, equal to the sums contributed from the 
treasury. The effects of this beneficent law are already seen in the interesting 
volume containing the transactions of the state agricultural societies for 1841, in 
the general attention to agricultural science, and in the annual exhibitions and 
fairs of the state agricultural society, and the several county associations. 
Acricultural journals also recently established, have contributed much to the 
promotion of that important object. Among those in this state which have 
exerted the most efficient influence, the Ploughboy, by Solomon Southwick, the 
Cultivator, to which the late Jesse Buel assiduously devoted the energies of his 
philosophic mind, and the Genesee Farmer, edited for many years by Luther 
Tucker and Willis Gaylord, and now conducted with equal ability by Henry 
Coleman, have been eminently successful. These journals have not merely dif- 
fused information concerning the processes of agriculture, but they have assigned 
to the farmer his proper position and just influence in society, and shown him the 
importance of intellectual acquirement. They have elevated the occupation in 
popular respect to the dignity of a profession, and it is no longer regarded as one 
of toilsome service, but as one of true honor, enjoyment and usefulness. Here 
too, as in Europe, agriculture has advantages from a more intimate connexion 
with science. To Sir Humphrey Davy belongs the honor of making chemistry 
subservient to the art. It now seems strange indeed, that while every process 
in the growth of plants, from their germination to their maturity, is purely the 
result of chemical action, scarcely an inquiry was bestowed upon the develop- 
ment of that action, until it engaged the attention of that philosopher. Davy 
was followed by that more profound investigator, Chaptal, and he by Liebig and 
Johnston. ‘The works of those authors, together with Dana’s volume on manures, 
which is of even greater practical usefulness, have now attained very general 
