REVIEWS REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 241 



all healthy progress, whether social or scientific, is usually of slow 

 growth. Let the agriculturist and chemist earnestly and repeatedly 

 interrogate nature, and await her reply in the true spirit of faith and 

 patience, and the way of progress will appear clear and certain. 



The services of a botanist engaged by the State, as proposed in a 

 former Patent Offie Report, might no doubt be made of great economic 

 value, as for instance in the department of agricultural grasses. Still 

 when the British Islands are regarded as a sort of standard in reference 

 to pasturage and grazing, we on this continent must make the neces- 

 sary allowance in our estimates, arising from diversities of climate, or 

 we shall certainly be deceived when we come to practical results. The 

 extremes of heat and cold, with the frequent sudden changes of tem- 

 perature, so generally characteristic of the climate of this continent, 

 will not allow either of the number or kinds of grasses that are indi- 

 genous to the soil, and constitute the permanent pastures of the old 

 country. That the pastures of North America are susceptible of 

 immense improvement no one can doubt ; and in the following obser- 

 vations of the report we entirely concur : — 



" There is no subject of more importance to the American farmer than the 

 knowledge of the means which shall best enable him to increase the number and 

 value of his live stock, of which grass furnishes the principal sustenance. It may 

 safely be said that the great defect in our agriculture is the failure to rear the 

 proper number and quality of animals. The experience of England and France 

 sufficiently demonstrates the important truth, that on the same number of acres 

 which are now cultivated in the United States, if the quantity of live stock were 

 doubled, the aggregate quantity of grain produced might also be greatly increased, 

 and without any corresponding increase of expense. The explanation of what 

 seems at first so paradoxical is found in the fact that, in this manner, the land 

 would be kept constantly in better heart. Instead of deteriorating from year to 

 year, as is the case when grain alone is the principal product, if a proper propor- 

 tion of live stock were reared, the land would retain its fertility for centuries, and 

 might, perhaps, be constantly improving. The effort to keep up the productive- 

 ness of land, which is solely used for the cultivation of grain, by means of guano 

 or artificial manures, is believed to be a vicious system of husbandry. That such 

 manures are highly valuable in their Avay, and, in the hands of the judicious cul- 

 tivator, will produce advantages which can hardly be over-estimated, is undoubt- 

 edly true ; but, after all, with the exception of the alkalies and phosphates they 

 contain, they do not possess the elements of permanent benefit. They should be 

 regarded as in the nature of medicines, or like artificial stimulants on the human 

 system. The true pabulum of the soil, provided and arranged by nature for this 

 very purpose, is obtained by the rearing of live stock, and in no other manner. 

 Indeed, it is probably true that the use of other manures, followed by the contin- 

 ual cropping of the grain for market, will be found in the end only to render the 

 soil more hopelessly bankrupt. It will galvanize it into spasmodic action for the 



