VI 
PREFACE. 
of the State, in which the characters of the natural vegetation have been 
introduced. It is not pretended that these illustrations were absolutely 
necessary to the usefulness of the report, still it is believed that the value 
and interest of the work is thereby materially enhanced. 
In the progress of this work, numerous subjects came up for investigation; 
and such must always be the case in a science which has so wide a field as 
agriculture. Among these subjects of investigation, the local temperatures, 
the annual amounts of rain, the length of the seasons in the different dis¬ 
tricts, the times of harvest, and the various accidents to which vegetation 
is occasionally exposed from contingencies of the weather, have received a 
share of my attention. Of those questions which all will regard as practically 
useful, the determination of the composition of the rocks that give origin to 
the soil is one which has occupied my particular care. A similar remark 
might be made respecting the composition of the waters of the different 
geological formations, though it must be said that want of sufficient time 
has prevented so full an investigation of this question as was desirable. As 
fertilizers of the soil, the shales, limestones, marls, peats, etc. have constantly 
occupied my attention; but I have devoted more time to the consideration 
of the soils themselves, than to the other subjects of inquiry. 
At the time I began this work, the utility of analyzing soils was regarded 
by many as questionable, and perhaps the same opinion is still entertained 
to some extent. My own views at first coincided with the opinions of those 
Avho looked upon the utility of the analysis of soils as somewhat doubtful; 
but on making the reconnoisance before referred to, I became convinced, 
that so far as this State was concerned, many beneficial results would follow 
from a faithful questioning of the soils by analysis. I accordingly commenced 
the work, and have pursued it faithfully up to the present time ; and I must 
say that my views in favor of the utility of the undertaking have rather been 
strengthened by the results obtained, more especially by those which appear 
in the latter part of this volume. 
I have kept in view, during the whole progress of the work, the relations 
of the soils to the rocks. I cannot, however, avoid observing that the subject 
is still open to investigation, and that much yet remains to be done in this 
field of inquiry. A want of time and means has cut short, to a certain extent, 
the plan I had proposed to carry out. Indeed it has been impossible to visit 
