AGRICULTURE. 101 



a sufficiency of such food to maintain more than the 

 present number of its inliabitants. 



The great fertility and prodigious growth of vege- 

 tables in warm climates, when compared with the 

 northern parts of the world, is almost incredible ; at 

 least, it will appear to be so to those who are unac- 

 quainted with the nature of vegetation. 



The advantages arising from a number of persons 

 uniting themselves as a society, for the purpose of 

 carrying forward an undertaking, are now so gene- 

 rally acknowledged, that to detail them appears 

 almost superfluous. Not only must the experience 

 and knowledge of an isolated individual be far less 

 than that of a body of men, but his means for 

 making experiments and conducting necessary opera- 

 tions, must be proportionably more circumscribed. 

 A body of men engaged in the same pursuits form a 

 joint stock of their information and experience, and 

 thereby put every individual in possession of the sum 

 total acquired by them all. Even the mistakes and 

 miscarriages of its members, when recorded, prove a 

 source of advantage to the body, while the labours of 

 every one communicate new energy to his associates, 

 and thus produce exertions which never would have 

 been made had they continued in their individual 

 capacity instead of uniting as a body. Men of 



