74 
THE CULTIVATOR 
In connection with this improved condition of British agriculture, 
and the practices it involves, you will excuse me if I advert for a 
moment to one aspect in which British agriculture may be regarded, 
which at the present moment is most vitally connected with the inte¬ 
rests of the English farmer, and may be neither uninteresting nor 
uninstructive to you. 
Were an intellectual foreigner, previously unacquainted with 
Great Britain, with the character of its peopie, or with its social con¬ 
dition, to be informed regarding this country, that though occupying 
only a small and thickly peopled comer of Europe, shrouded for ma¬ 
ny months of the year in fogs and mists, seldom and briefly visited 
by the fervid sun—never, I may say, by such a sun as now shines 
upon us—and raising its own grain crops with cost and difficulty to 
feed its rapidly increasing inhabitants—were he to be told that the 
Legislature of this country, in which the agricultural body is the pre¬ 
dominating interest, had thrown open its island harbors to all comers, 
and trusting to superior energy, perseverance and skill, had invited 
even the most fertile and favored regions of the globe to a free com¬ 
petition in their own grain markets, fearless of the results;—apart 
from all fiscal theories or political views with which my profession 
and pursuits forbid me to intermeddle, I ask you, if such a foreigner, 
so instructed, could fail to admire the open boldness, to look with 
respect on the resoluteness of such a country, or to long for an op¬ 
portunity to study, not only the character and habits of its people, 
but the modes of culture practiced by them, with so much success, 
in a region so unfavored by nature. 
And were he actually to come among us, it would be easy for him 
having started from the Land’s end, to proceed from one warm 
hearted and hospitable farmer to another, till the Pentland Firth ar¬ 
rested his course, and all his journey long he might converse with 
cultivators of ardent minds, full of practical and general knowledge, 
who in most unpromising circumstaances refuse to despond, and 
while they see so much every where around them awaiting the hand 
of the improver, will not let slip the anchor of hope; who differing 
widely, perhaps, in politics, and as to the policy of certain fiscal re¬ 
gulations, yet feel alike that to resolute men the conquest of the stub¬ 
born land is as sure as the dominion of the sea; that new difficulties 
only demand new exertions and that new energies are equal to meet 
new emergencies. 
On quitting the British shores, after such a tour, that foreigner 
would carry with him a true impression of the flower of English and 
Scottish Agriculturists, and his first admiration of the resolute firm¬ 
ness, and his estimate of the skill of the island farmers, would be 
confirmed and strengthened by his actual survey.* 
In other parts of the world I might fear lest my audience should 
accuse me of over exalting, by such language as this, the character 
of my own country and its people. You, who feel so just a pride 
in the noble land you possess, will know how to make allowance for 
my pride in mine. But indeed whatever can be truly said of British 
farmers, may, I begin to feel, already be said, with almost equal 
truth, of the farmers of your Northern states. Of the west and 
south, I cannot as yet, from personal observation, speak. In Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick, two younger provinces, I have seen a 
picture of what Maine and New Hampshire, and Massachusetts es¬ 
pecially, have been; and in the gradual conquest which persevering 
labor has in these states achieved over drifted rocks and hungry gra¬ 
vels, and sandy barrens and ungenial swamps, I discover the reso¬ 
lute spirit still living of those men who centuries ago, dared to cross 
a then wide and little known sea, in search of new and freer homes, 
and whose descendants now till alike the soils of the Old England 
and the New. Time has not impaired the energy and enterprise of 
either; I believe I may say it has left their hearts unchanged too. 
And now you are ready to ask me, what those, who in Europe are 
most in advance in the practice of the rural arts, look forward to as 
likely to help on agriculture still further. In what especially, you 
will inquire, do we of Great Britain trust, who have thrown down 
the gauntlet to the farmers of the world ? These questions I shall 
answer by drawing your attention briefly, to what may be regarded 
as the characteristic or living feature of the agriculture of our time 
—what you no doubt expect me briefly to speak of, the direct appli¬ 
cations, namely, of natural science to the several branches of rural 
economy. 
The main purposes for which natural science is applied to rural 
economy, are— 
First. To explain the reasons of practices already adopted, or of 
things already observed, and to supplant old and defective by new 
and better usages. 
Second. To establish general principles, by means of which, a 
short cut is provided for the unlearned, to the knowledge, practical 
and theoretical, we already possess. A single principle explains and 
thus recommends or forbids many practices, according to the circum¬ 
stances of the soil, place, or season. 
Third. To enlarge our actual knowledge by new discoveries sus¬ 
ceptible of practical application. 
On these, several objects of natural science, in its application to 
.agriculture, it would be out of place at present to dilate. It wiil be 
sufficient if I briefly draw your attention to some of the general re¬ 
sults, in reference to rural economy, at which science has already ar¬ 
rived. 
With this view I might draw my illustrations from any one of the 
many different branches of natural knowledge. I might select for 
example :— 
1st. The general relations of Physical Geography to the art of cul¬ 
ture—such as 
* For two recent estimates of the condition of Agriculture in Great 
. Britain, see— 
YV'eceherlin. Ueber Englische Land-ivirlhschaft und deren Anwend- 
ing avf Land-wirthschaftlihe Verhaltnisse insbesondere Deutch-lands. 
Stuttgard and Tubingen , 1845. And 
Colman’s British Agriculture. London and Boston, 1848. 
Feb. 
a. The influence of broad seas and of great lakes and rivers, of 
tides, of sea currents, and of prevailing winds, on the capabilities of 
a country, and the practices and profits of its cultivators. 
b. The influence of mountain elevations and depressions, of high 
table lands and of low level plains—or 
2d. The general indications of Geology in regard to the fertility of 
a country, the branches of husbandry to which it is best adapted, and 
the means by which its fertility may be best promoted. 
The Geological Map of this State, and the volumes of the Natnral 
History Survey, afford abundant illustrations of this science to prac¬ 
tical agriculture—or 
3d. The relations of Meteorology and Botany conjoined—such as 
a. The adaptation of certain plants to certain climates—of sugar, 
cotton and rice to warmer; of buckwheat, and Indian corn and 
wheat, to warmer and drier; of rye, barley and oats, to colder and 
more uncertain climates. 
b. The nature of rust, smut, mildew, the maize brand, &c., and 
the circumstances of local climate most favorable to their appearance 
—or 
4th. The relations of Geology and Vegetable Structure oonjoined— 
such as 
That certain plants and soils are mutually adapted to each other, 
because of the special structure and natural habits of the plauts, and 
the physical characters only of the soils. 
The valley of the Mohawk, for example, is remarkably prolific in 
Indian corn, and raises comparatively little wheat—while the district 
of Syracuse produces wheat abundantly, and is less favorable to 
corn. So in Great Britain and Ireland, we have our turnep and bar¬ 
ley soils, distinguishable readily by the practical man, from the 
wheat and clover soils. These differences are independent of che¬ 
mical composition, and are not to be explained upon chemical prin¬ 
ciples. They are dependant upon the special relation which the 
structure and natural habits of the plants bear to the physical charac¬ 
ters of the medium in which their roots are made to grow—or 
5th. The general indications of Geology and Meteorology conjoined 
—such as 
The relations of the nature of the rocks, of the soil, and of the fall 
of rain taken together— 
a. To the necessity for under drainage ; and the means of effecting. 
b. To the necessity for artificial irrigation, and the easiest mode of 
obtaining a supply of water for the purpose—or 
6 th. The general relations of Zoology and Animal Physiology. 
a. To breeds of domestic animals, and to the preservation of their 
purity. 
b. To the rearing, feeding and general tending of stock. 
c. To the agency of animal life in fertilizing the soil. 
d. To the attacks of insects upon our cultivated crops—or 
7th. The general indications of Chemistry —such as 
a. That a fertile soil, in addition to various organic compounds, 
contains at least eleven different mineral substances. 
b. That plants contain, usually, or in most of their parts, the great¬ 
er number of the same mineral substances. 
c. That the animal, as a whole, also contains them, but distributed 
throughout its several parts in a manner different from that in which 
they are found, either in the plant or in the soil. 
d. That the plant standing, as it were, between the soil and the 
animal, prepares for the latter both its organic and its mineral food. 
e. That an intimate and beautiful relation exists between the soil, 
the plant and the animal—or between the living and the dead things 
of nature—or 
8 th. The general indications of Geology and Chemistry conjoined 
—such as 
a. That certain Geological formations are especially rich in some 
of the mineral substances found in and required by plants, and pro¬ 
duce soils which with special treatment will prove fertile and profita¬ 
ble to the cultivator. 
b. That others are especially defective in some of these substances, 
and form soils which are naturally unproductive. 
c. That some abound in all the kinds of mineral matter which 
plants require, and yet yield soils which are naturally unfertile. 
I. Relations of Geology to Agriculture. 
From any one of these general topics, I might select beautiful ex¬ 
amples of the close bearings of science upon profitable farming—but 
time does not permit me to illustrate in detail any one of the general 
relations to which I have referred. A few observations, however, 
in reference to the special applications of Geology and Chemistry, 
will neither detain us long, nor prove, I believe, generally uninter¬ 
esting. 
In reference to Geology, I could have wished to point out to you 
the very close economical connection which recent discoveries have 
established between practical geology and practical agriculture— 
how the manufacture and abundance of valuable manures, for ex¬ 
ample, is actually dependant on the progress of geological discovery. 
I must be content, however, with a brief allusion to the geology of 
the United States. 
There, are few countries, indeed, which more clearly than your 
own, show the relations which geology bears to agriculture in all its 
branches. Your wide prairies are naturally distinguished from your 
vast forest lands, by the character of their soils, and these again by 
the geological structure of the regions over which they extend, and 
from which they are generally derived. The broad treeless zone of 
calcareous marl, or rotten limestone—called the prairie or cane brake 
country—which crosses Alabama in an east and west direction,* 
owes its natural nakedness to the dry, waterless, chalky deposits, 
which for a depth of hundreds of feet form the uppermost rocks of 
the country; and the tenacious, soapy, unctuous quality of the soils, 
with which the carriage wheels of travellers in that State, in wet 
weather, become familiar, is owing to the same cause. 
So your Zones of differing timber, as you ascend from the alluvial 
* Lyell’s Second Visit to the United States, pp. 42, 89. 
