BOYS 1 DEPARTMENT. 
227 
they resolve in the beginning that their occupations 
shall be so arranged as to give time for all they 
wish, and strive to impress upon their husbands the 
justice of a division of labor within doors as well 
as out, they will doubtless succeed in becoming not 
only intelligent companions, but excellent house¬ 
wives; for as a clever female writer has remarked, 
<c other things being equal, the woman of the high¬ 
est mental endowments will always be the best 
housekeeper, for domestic economy is a science 
that brings into action the qualities of the mind as 
well as the graces of the heart.” 
And if better companions and wives, then better 
mothers also, for the higher the cultivation of their 
own minds and manners, the more fitted will they 
he to control the minds and manners of others ; and 
when their children see them moving in polished 
circles abroad, or presiding over the little group at 
home, with equal grace and dignity, suffering 
nothing in a comparison with the most highly in¬ 
telligent, then will their father’s occupation become 
honored for the parent’s sake, and if not chosen as 
their own, yet not rejected because degrading. 
Lynn, Mass., June 3d, 1846. E. M. C. 
So qs 1 ^Department. 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 
One afternoon, in the month of July, immediately 
after a smart thunder-storm, as Mr. Merryman was 
taking a walk over his farm, with his son George, 
a dab of a school-boy, at his side, their nostrils 
were regaled by a delicious and peculiar odor which 
was rising from the ground. 
George looked up knowingly into his father’s 
face, and said, “ Papa, do you know where that 
sweet scent comes from ?” 
“ To be sure, child!” said Mr. Merryman. 
“ From the ground .” 
“ Yes,” said George, “ but what makes it come 
from the ground ?” 
“ Why, the ram,” answered his father. 
“ But what makes the rain bring it from the 
ground ?” continued the boy. 
Mr. Merryman looked puzzled, and stood in 
silence; whilst George, who had just entered the 
junior class in agricultural chemistry, strongly 
came out with his first lesson. 
“ It comes from the ammonia brought down in the 
rain more rapidly than the earth can absorb it, and 
which, being a highly volatile gas, is rising again into 
the air as soon as the storm is over /” 
“ Nonsense, child!” said the perplexed, though 
good-natured farmer. 
“ But Professor Liebig and Dr. Playfair, and all 
the great chemists say that it is so,” rejoined the 
young tyro. 
“ But how can they prove it, boy ?” inquired the 
disbelieving parent. 
“ Why, in this way,” answered George. « They 
say that although the carbonate of ammonia, which 
smells so deliciously, is a volatile gas, the sul¬ 
phate of ammonia is a fixed and visible body ; 
and if you spread finely powdered gypsum, or 
plaster, which is sulphate of lime , upon a grass 
field, you may walk over it after a thunder-shower 
without perceiving this scent; for the gypsum lays 
hold of the ammonia and obliges it to make a 
very curious interchange—a sort of cross mar¬ 
riage ; for the sulphur leaves the lime and unites 
with the ammonia, and becomes sulphate of ammo^ 
nia, and the carbonate, abandoned by the ammonia, 
consoles the deserted lime, and becomes carbonate 
of lime, commonly called chalk ! And thus gyp¬ 
sum, though not a manure itself, becomes the 
basis of two manures—sulphate of ammonia, 
which is an organic manure, and carbonate of 
lime, which is an inorganic manure. But the 
master says we must not speak of inorganic ma¬ 
nures, because it leads to confusion; and it is bet¬ 
ter to call inorganic substances applied to the soil 
‘ alteratives,’ for the sake of distinction. And he 
says that if powdered gypsum be spread occasion¬ 
ally over the stables and the farm-yard, it will 
take up all the ammonia that now goes off in smell, 
and by the same process above-mentioned, will in¬ 
crease the quantity and value of the manure pro¬ 
digiously.” 
Query, Which is the better agriculturist, that boy 
or his father ? The one is an experienced and 
“ practical farmer,” the other, a stripling just 
dipped in the first rudiments of “ theory.” But 
what is theory ? The condensed result of the 
whole history of former practice, arranged and 
classified, enlightened and explained, by reference 
to the eternal and immutable principles of scientific 
truth. He who despises theory despises the prac¬ 
tice of every man that was bom before himself in 
the world. He who commences practice with the 
knowledge of theory, commences business with a 
mind lit up by the recorded experience of all who 
went before him. 
But how is it with the “ practical farmer,” as he 
is too often called ? He leaves the rich, vegetable 
deposits of the valley of the Mohawk, where he 
had been aecustomed from his boyhood to use 
plaster with the utmost advantage, and settles on 
the sandy plains of Long Island, where he is 
laughed at by one of his “ practical” neighbors for 
attempting to benefit his crops by applying plaster 
to a soil nearly or quite destitute of vegetable 
mould. His neighbor, in return, is laughed at by 
a visitor from abroad, for mixing large quantities of 
quick lime with his peat before spreading it on his 
field, while the latter is no less absurdly employed 
in galvanizing a living pig with the. belief that he is 
causing an increase of growth. But our “ young 
theorist” who just gave us the lesson about ammo¬ 
nia, when he will have arrived at the end of his 
course, will leave the school equally well prepared 
for any soil you may plant him in, and will be 
master of the whole art of Agriculture. If he 
learns every lesson as well as his first, he will be 
able to turn the laugh upon the “ laughers” at the 
end of one course, without being bound down to 
the details of practice, whether we place him 
among the sands of Long Island, the clays of 
Western New York, the granitic, soils of New 
Hampshire, or the rich vegetable bottoms of the 
Ohio. *W.* 
He who takes a fish out of the water finds a 
piece of money.— Dr. Franklin . 
