202 Bibliography. 



derive a painful interest from being his last contributions to science. His 

 account of the fossil trees of the coal formation, excavated within a few 

 miles of Manchester, in digging for the rail-road to Bolton, is particu- 

 larly important, and is rendered perfectly intelligible by a good section 

 with the trees in situ. 



12. Fourth Rejjort of the Agriculture of Massachusetts, counties of 

 Franklin and. Middlesex ; by Heney Colman, Commissioner for the 

 Agricultural Survey of the State. Boston : Button & Wentworth, 

 State Printers. 1841. 8vo, pp. 528. — Mr. Colman is too well known to 

 all our readers who value the advancement of the noblest human occupa- 

 tion, to need praise at our hands. This is the fourth, and we are sorry to 

 say the last report, from his hand, of Massachusetts agriculture. We 

 should be surprised that a state so enlightened as to institute this survey, 

 should stop it as it were in the bud, were we not informed that the ar- 

 rest was accomplished by a legislative committee, not one of whom 

 had ever read a page of the three former reports of the able commis- 

 sioner. Under these circumstances, no one can doubt but the survey 

 which has already done so much for the State will be renewed. We 

 are assured by gentlemen highly competent to judge, and whose prac- 

 tical opinion among farmers is worth every thing, that the present re- 

 port is by far the most important agricultural document ever produced 

 among us. From our own perusal, we perceive that the amount of 

 condensed and classified information is very great, and the quotations 

 of actual experience from the best farms in the State, give the work 

 a standard value very different from works of purely speculative con- 

 tents. It is particularly full on the dairy, and the improved breeds of 

 cattle. 



We hail with extreme pleasure the revival of agriculture in this coun- 

 try, looking upon it as the first, most important and happiest of merely 

 human occupations. We ventured to predict in a notice of Liebig's Ag- 

 ricultural Chemistry, Vol. xl, p. 177, that the publication of that work 

 would form a new era in agriculture. We may appeal to the history 

 of the two past years for the truth of that statement. The press has 

 literally teemed, during that period, with books on various departments 

 of agriculture, but especially on agricultural chemistry. There are 

 now not less than six or eight of these new publications on our table, 

 hardly yet dry from the press, and almost every journal announces 

 some new one, or new editions of those already out. The ablest men, 

 in all parts of the world, no longer consider the subject unworthy their 

 attention. Every thing indicates that the public mind has become thor- 

 oughly alive to the importance of its greatest physical interest, and we 

 may confidently anticipate the best results for science and mankind. 



