1850 
THE CULTIVATOR, 
71 
smallest. Every farmer knows that it is ordinarily 
the grain which is sold off, while the straw is re¬ 
turned as manure. The grain, as we have seen 
contains most of the phosphates and of the nitrogen, 
so that of course these bodies, originally small in 
quantity, are soonest exhausted. Here then, we 
have the reason for their efficiency. The carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen, lime, potash, silica, &c., are 
each and all equally indispensible to the plant in 
its various parts, but they are much more abun¬ 
dant, there being comparatively few situations 
where the plant cannot obtain a supply of all or 
nearly all. The scarcity of the phosphates, and of 
ammonia or other bodies containing nitrogen in the 
soil, gives these substances a high relative value, 
and causes manures which contain them in large 
quantity, to produce such a marked effect. 
My desire to make this subject plain, has extend¬ 
ed this letter somewhat unreasonably, but if I have 
made myself understood, I am sure that no farmer 
will have found clear explanations upon such an 
important branch of his profession, very tedious. 
John P. Norton. 
®lje State of Jlgvkultnre in (Europe. 
Professor Johnston’s Address, 
Delivered at the Annual Exhiblion of the New-York State Agricultural 
Society , at Syracuse , September 13, 1849. 
r Gentlemen :—One of the first lessons a European has to learn 
after lie has landed on the shores of this new world, is to dispossess 
his mind of all those associations, rich and rare, with which the his¬ 
tory of past ages has connected the names of remarkable places. 
In passing through New England it was my fortune to stop at towns 
and villages called by names long familiar to my ears—the sounds 
of which seemed to say, “in a few hours or minutes you will arrive 
again at your own home and hearth.” 
But in travelling from Albany to this place, I have met with peo¬ 
ple fresh from Troy—I have come through Utica and Rome—and 
from the lips of children have heard of other mighty cities which 
our earliest European lessons clothe in the hoar of remote antiquity, 
and illuminate with the glory of immortal deeds. In the desire thus 
to connect your new towns with the recollection of famous actions, 
I would read an admiration of the actions themselves, and secret as¬ 
pirations after similar renown. 
_ In the old world I have just left, there exists an ancient Syracuse, 
rich in all those bounties of heaven, which especially favor the hus¬ 
bandman—a genial and sunny clime—clear, blue skies, balmy air, 
and never failing dews—a soil fertile in oil and wine, and abundant in 
corn, almost beyond belief. 
Thousands of years ago, when no Saxon or Celtic foot, not even 
that of the roving Northmen, had yet trodden the American shores, 
this ancient Syracuse was the capital of a kingdom of six millions 
of souls; and though it had so many mouths of its own to fill, the 
produce of its teeming soil left still a large surplus for exportation. 
An energetic people, comparatively free—unbroken in spirit by fre¬ 
quent wars, by foreign conquerors, and by the degradation and op¬ 
pression which afterwards beset their domestic hearths—availed 
themselves to the utmost of the bounties of nature, and by patient 
industry made their country the horreum Romanorumf and in the 
language of I/ivy, ,k populo Romano, pace ac beUo fidissimum anno- 
nce svbsidium” Now cast down and degraded, the successors— 
scarcely to be called the sons of the same people—languish in com¬ 
parative indolence ; and though the bounties of nature are ever fresh 
and new as in its palmiest days, there are few countries in which 
agriculture and the arts of life are in a more debased condition than 
m modern Sicily. 
But time, which has wrought this melancholy change, has caused 
others more cheering to happen too. It may be, that amid the ruins 
of old Syracuse its ancient fires may still live, on some future day to 
be lighted up anew, and more successfully, into a steady and endur¬ 
ing name, which the foot of despotism shall never again be able to 
trample out. But however this be, it is gratifying to me to see—as 
it must be to you—that in a new country, peopled by a new race, a 
younger Syracuse has sprung up, emulous of the worth and glory of 
the ancient—nourished by free institutions—carried forward by the 
untiring energy of the Teutonic blood—above all, emulous of the 
agricultural renown of die Syracuse of distant times, and by the ap¬ 
plication of more mind and knowledge, to a less exuberant soil in a 
less favored dime, bent on creating a new granary of the nations, an 
unfailing western store-house to a great and growing people. 
It is a happy omen to me, coming among you for the first time, that 
I should meet to discourse with you upon scientific agriculture, in a 
city which recalls the vast fertility of the plains and slopes of Sicily 
—may the modern name like the ancient, descend to after times, as¬ 
sociated with ideas of rich cultivation and prolific fields of corn! 
It is not without anxiety, as you will suppose, that I appear for the 
first time before a large trans-adantic audience. But though you are 
American born, gentlemen, your faces are familiar to me. They 
tell me you have Scotch and English hearts, and I believe I may 
throw myself confidently on your kind indulgence. 
I cannot presume to address you on the general importance of ag¬ 
riculture ; its fundamental connection with the welfare and power of 
every state ; the estimation in winch it has been held in all ages and 
among every cultivated people; the natural proneness of man to till 
the soil; the pleasure with which the most talented men, and the high¬ 
est in station, have always looked forward to the time when leaving 
business and profession and the cares of office to younger men, the 
small farm should alone employ their quiet leisure; nor upon the great¬ 
er attention and respect which this art and its cultivators every where 
demand, aud are every where receiving. These topics are familiar 
to you, and you are too rich in native talent to require a stranger to 
address you on generalities like these. 
Nor does my very recent arrival in the United States, entitle me : 
as yet to speak from my own observation upon the existing condition* 
of agriculture on this side of the Atlantic. I have selected, there¬ 
fore. as the subject of my present address, the existing condition of 
agriculture in Enrope. 
There are two very different ways in which I might bring this sub¬ 
ject before you. I might illustrate in the abstract, the amount of 
practical and scientific knowledge which Europe possesses in regard 
to each of the departments of rural economy, which its climate ena¬ 
bles it to prosecute. Taking the methods of the best practical men, 
and adding to these the knowledge of those most skillful in theory, I 
might present to you a picture, every detail of which was true, but 
the effect of which as a whole, would be to convey to you a most 
exaggerated idea of the actual condition of the art—even in Great 
Britain, where both in theory and practice it is supposed to be best 
understood, and most skillfully carried into operation. Or I might 
take you from country to country, aud show you as we passed has¬ 
tily along, the character of its rural population, the excellencies or 
defects of its cultural practices, the condition of its arable soils, the 
qualities and treatment of its cattle, and generally what is doing 
by governments and people in each country for the improvement of 
the rural arts. I should thus set before you a series of pictures, true, 
not only in detail, but in their general effects upon your minds, 
though not partaking of those broad and comprehensive views, which 
a sketch of European Agriculture, as one whole, Avould be expected 
to present. 
I propose, to some extent, to follow both methods. After a brief 
outline of the state of practical agriculture in the leading countries 
of Europe, derived chiefly from my own observations, I shall endea¬ 
vor to give you an idea of the position in which agriculture as an art 
now stands—of what is doing to advance it—and especially of the 
aids which science is now lending to the practical economics of rural 
life. 
Sweden. —Commencing in the north of Europe with the Scandi¬ 
navian peninsula, I would remark that in Sweden,—especially since 
the accession of the late king, Carl Johan, better known by the name 
of Bernadette—much attention has been paid to agriculture. The 
improvement and increase of the flocks of sheep for the growth of 
wool, the introduction of better breeds of stock, of newer imple¬ 
ments, and of an improved rotation of crops—have successively re¬ 
ceived much attention; but of late years the great force of the peo¬ 
ple has been expended on the drainage of the lakes and marshes 
with which the country is so plentifully studded over. The agricul¬ 
tural societies of the provinces, in conjunction with the Academy of 
Agriculture in Stockholm, have devoted much pains to what may be 
called the arterial drainage of their several districts; and though the 
more refined method of improvement, known in Great Britain by the 
name of thorough drainage , has not as yet been any where introdu¬ 
ced, it is only just to the energy of Sweden to say that no European 
people, in proportion to its natural resources, has done more during 
the last twenty years in the reclamation of improveable land from 
the dominion of overflowing water. 
Further advances are also secured by the translation, especially 
from the English, of the best works on scientific agriculture, under 
the auspices of the Academy of Agriculture, and "by the establish¬ 
ment of agricultural schools and model farms, one of which each 
province is expected in a few years to possess. Thus in Sweden, as 
in all other countries, the period of improvement by mechanical 
means will be succeeded by one of improvement by chemical means 
—the nature and economical application of which latter means, 
books and schools will have taught, when the time for more general¬ 
ly applying them shall have come. 
Russia. —In Russia, agriculture as a whole is in a very imperfect 
condition. Here and there, especially in the neighborhood of large 
towns like Moscow and St. Petersburgh, laboriously and skilfully 
cultivated fields may be seen, while herds of improved Swiss and 
short horned cattle are carefully raised on the domains of the rich 
nobility. The Emperor also, who knows well the importance of 
this art to the strength and prosperity of his dominions, sets an ex¬ 
ample to his subjects by the efforts 1. e makes to introduce a better sys¬ 
tem of culture among the serfs on the Imperial estates, by the estab¬ 
lishment of schools for the instruction of farmers in art and experi¬ 
mental science, and by the maintenance of model farms upon the 
appanages of the crown. But Russia, nevertheless, is half a wilder¬ 
ness. Millions of acres of perpetual forest cover rich soils which 
there are no hands to till. The value of an estate is measured not 
by the number of acres it contains, but by the number of souls which 
live upon, cultivate, and are sold along with it. As in the first clear¬ 
ings of a North American wilderness, where land is comparatively 
worthless, the soil is cropped till it is exhausted, and then new land is 
subjected to the plow and exhausted in its turn. In no country of the 
world, with the exception of Northern America, is there so vast q 
field for the useful emigration of agricultural settlers, as in the m;gh 
ty Empire of Russia. But language, and religion, and political in¬ 
stitutions, oppose barriers which the Saxon, and I may say the Teu¬ 
tonic races generally, feel themselves unable to overcome. 
Germany. —In order to obtain a correct opinion of the agriculture 
