1850. 
THE CULTIVATOR 
75 
swamps of the shores in your southern states, across the eocene and 
cretaceous beds to the mica slate, gneiss and granite of the Appala¬ 
chian chain, are the consequences and indications of diversities in 
geological structure. The swamp willow, the cypresses, ( thyoides 
and disticha) the swamp hickory, the green palmetto, the tall mag- 
nolia, the red maple, and the cotton wood of the lowest swampy 
spot—the hickory, oak, magnolia, beech, walnut, tulip tree, and hol¬ 
ly, of the dry, alluvial bluffs—the perpetual pines of the tertiary (eo¬ 
cene) sands—the naked prairie of the cretaceous marls—and the 
mixed oaks, hickory and pines which appear on the primary rocks— 
all these zones of different timber indicate the natural connection of 
the vegetation of a district with the nature of the rocks on which it 
rests. 
Nor are these geological relations of vegetable life without their in¬ 
fluence on the daily movements of your shifting population. I have 
elsewhere shown how directly the movements, the natural expansion 
I may call it, of our first class farmers in Scotland, is not only influ¬ 
enced but actually, as it were, prescribed, by the geological charac¬ 
ter of the district in which they have been brought up and to which 
they intend to move.* So it is among you. “ Those who go south¬ 
wards from Virginia to North and South Carolina, and thence to 
Georgia and Alabama follow, as by instinct, the corresponding zones 
of country. The inhabitants of the red soil of the granitic region 
keep to their oak and hickory ; the ‘ crackers’ of the tertiary pine 
barrens, to their light wood; and those who inhabit the newest geo¬ 
logical formations in the sea islands, to their fish and oysters.”? 
And to this illustration of a fact, which may be proved, I believe, 
by observtion in every country of the globe, Sir Charles Lyell, adds 
a sentence, from which I am sure you will at once draw an impor¬ 
tant, practical lesson. “ On reaching Texas, all these different clas¬ 
ses are at fault, because the cretaceous strata in that country con¬ 
sist of a hard, compact, siliceous limestone, which defies the decom¬ 
posing action of the atmosphere, and forms table lands of bare rock, 
entirely unlike the marls, clay and sand, of the same age, in Ala¬ 
bama.” 
The tillers ofthe red land, of the pine barrens, of the marshy prai¬ 
ries, and of the sea island swamps, are equally at a loss when they 
migrate to a country of which the soils and surface differ from all 
they have left. And how is this ? Because they have no familiarity 
with those general principles of chemical science on which all cul¬ 
ture on all soils depends—because, if they wish to continue the same 
kind of tillage, and on soils similar to those they have left, they have 
not such a knowledge of the general principles of Geology as would 
enable them at once to say, to this or to that country, I must go, for 
there alone am I likely to find them. 
In my own country, I have been accustomed to press upon the ag¬ 
ricultural community the importance of such geological knowledge 
1 o them, because of the numerous colonies we possess in all parts of 
the world, and because of the swarms of emigrants we yearly send 
off to subdue and people them4 But to you whom I now address, 
who already occupy, or in connection with kindred blood are desti¬ 
ned to subdue and people nearly half a world—how much more im¬ 
portant must such knowledge be ! Your westward movement will 
continue for many generations, and how much surer will the way to 
wealth be to your hardy pioneers, if they have been taught in their 
early homes, not only only how to choose land, but where to look 
for the kind they wish to buy, and how to till it best, whatever it may 
be, when it has come into their possession. 
I ought, perhaps, to apologise for saying so much on this subject. 
To you, who have expended so much public money and so large a 
measure of talent in developing the geological structure and natural 
resources of this and other states, it may appear presumptuous in me 
to urge further upon your attention, what you have shown that you 
already so fully appreciate. I may plead as an excuse, that in a 
country where all action originates, and all power centres in the 
masses, a brief discussion of the subject before a great meeting like 
this, may help new listeners towards a proper general estimation of 
the practical value of science—and that what I have said will not 
fail in being useful to scientific agriculture, if it convince a single 
undecided voter in this great commonwealth of the worth of those 
aids which science offers you, in developing the resources of the soil. 
II. Relations of Chemistry to Agriculture. 
Permit me now to say a few words on the subject of chemistry, in 
its relations to agriculture. 
The special applications of this science, as many of you are al¬ 
ready aware, are far too multiplied to aclmit even of enumeration. 
Of the practical ends which have been more or less perfectly attain¬ 
ed by means of chemistry, I might mention such general ones as 
these:— 
1st. In what general exhaustion consists, how it is produced, and 
how it may be repaired ? 
2d. In what special exhaustion consists, how it is brought about, 
either naturally or artificially, and how it is to be corrected ? 
3d. What plants, in general require to make them grow well ? 
4th. What manures ought to contain, to be generally serviceable; 
what, with a view to special purposes, they ought specially to con¬ 
tain; and how they are to be artificially prepared? 
But such topics are too general and indefinite to make a sure im- 
ression on the mind of the practical farmer, in the brief moments I 
ave spent in enumerating them. 
I mention further, therefore, such special points as the following :— 
1st. How to bring crops to earlier ripeness in late and elevated dis¬ 
tricts. 
2 d. How to reduce the straw producing tendency of the land. 
3d. How to hasten or promote, or to push forward laggard, yellow, 
and stunted vegetation. 
* See an article in the Edinburgh Review for March, 1849. 
t Lyell’s Second Visit to the Uhited States, p. 110. 
$ See the Author’s Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geolo¬ 
gy, Fifth Edition , p. 61<3. 
4th. How to strengthen the straw of your grass crops, where they 
are liable to be laid. 
5th. How to fill the ear and make it larger, where long culture or 
natural poverty has reduced its size. 
6 th. How to improve the deficient feeding quality of turnep, and 
other root crops, when grown on mossy land. 
7th. To quicken the organic matter in dead, deaf, or peaty soils, 
and make it available for the nourishment of plants. 
8 th. To prepare artificial manures, which shall nourish any crop 
on any available soil. 
9th. To promote growth on sloio, and to retard it on quick soils. 
10th. On newly brought up subsoils, and on trenched land, what 
manures ought to be used, and why. 
11 th. Why a rotation of manures, as it is called by practical men, 
is necessary, and where. 
12th. That the use of lime to a certain extent, and In a prudent 
way, is necessary to Ihe highest fertility. 
13th. That saline and nearly all other manures, do more good upon 
light and open, than they do upon stiff and close soils, and why. 
14th. How to economise the consumption of vegetable food, and 
to adapt it to the purpose for which an animal is fed. 
16th. How to prevent the disease called^/jgers and toes in turneps 
and other roots, and how to render mildew and ague equally rare. 
To do these and many similar things economically, skilfully, and 
with more or less success, are among the practical ends to whwh 
chemical investigations have already led us. 
They also supply answers to many practical questions, such as :— 
1st. Why cabbage crops so greatly exhaust the soil, and how such 
exhaustion is to be repaired ? 
2nd. Why tares cut green exhaust the land, and give inferior 
wheat? 
3d. Why tares are seldom good after crops of clover? 
4th. Why lime produces a more marked effect on one soil than it 
does upon another ? 
5th. Why one variety of lime is more useful generally, or in parti¬ 
cular districts on particular farms and fields, than another ? 
Of special points and questions, I could enumerate many more, in 
regard to which chemistry may be said to have been, or to be capa¬ 
ble of becoming, of obvious money value to the farmer. Even to 
such of you, however, as have not much attended to this subject, the 
above examples will sufficiently indicate both the kind of connection 
which exists between practical agriculture and practical chemistry ; 
and the kind of uses to which such scientific knowledge may here¬ 
after be put, in advancing the important art, which it is the first wish 
of this great Society, and the individual interest of many of its mem¬ 
bers most zealously to promote. 
Limits of Human Skill. —But in dwelling upon and illustrating 
what is already in the power of man, and what he hopes to attain in 
reference to agriculture through the aids of science, I would not for- 
et to acknowledge how very limited his knowledge is, and how fee- 
le his capacities after all. 
A mysterious fungus attacks the potato, and for years spreads 
famine and misery, and discontent and depression, among millions of 
industrious farmers. 
A minute fly, season after season, hovers over our wheat fields, 
and from entire provinces and states almost banishes the cultivation 
of our most important grain. 
A long continued drouth, such as half a century past has scarcely 
seen, dries up our meadows and pastures, amt drives the farmer to 
his wits end, to obtain winter sustenance for his necessary stock. 
Such things as these ought to prevent us from boasting of our 
knowledge, and to enforce upon us that piety and humbleness of 
spirit which rural occupations themselves so naturally foster—while 
at the same time they should not restrain us from any effort or inqui¬ 
ry by which the evils themselves may be mitigated or removed. 
It is possible—nay it is almost within the bounds of a reasonable 
expectation—that the same intellectual research which has given us 
dominion over the proud waves—has made cut the laws by which 
hurricanes are regulated—has already almost freed us from their 
most fierce influences—and has forced the fiery lightning to descend 
harmlessly from heaven—that the same research may finally free us 
from the visitations of the fungus and the insect, and may place the 
dreary drouths of summer under reasonable control. Such hopes 
we may entertain, not as sources of pride, but as stimulants to exer¬ 
tion—for in so greatly rewarding the past exercises of our intellectual 
powers, the Deity obviously intends still further to excite us to study 
and extract good from the living- and dead things of nature, over 
which he has given us a general dominion. 
Oestacles to Progress.' —There are, however, in every coun¬ 
try, certain obstacles which oppose themselves to the progress of 
scientific agriculture, as a branch of knowledge, or to its practical 
application in the improvement of the soil. 
I do not refer to those physical or local obstacles of climate, ele¬ 
vation above the sea, low prices, distance from markets, and so on; 
but to those social and class obstacles which, in so many places, and 
in so many ways, interfere not only with the rapid extension of our 
knowledge, but with the diffusion of what we already possess as to 
the application of science to the rural arts. I may enumerate as be¬ 
longing to obstacles of this kind: 
1st. The aversion to theory, as it is called, which is so generally 
professed by practical farmers in most countries of the world. Rash 
and hasty theorising in regard to agriculture, it is right to reject; the 
error lies in confounding with such theory every thing that does not 
appear to bear directly upon the more common operations of the 
farm—as if chemistry, or the chemist for example, could be of no 
use to the farmer, because he does not interfere with the handling of 
the plow—or with the shape and management of the drill machine, 
or the harrow. 
2d. The small amount of talent hitherto in all countries considered 
necessary to fit a man to become an excellent farmer. This-not on¬ 
ly lowers the general education and attainments of the agricultural 
class, and the estimation in which they are held—but it unfits them, 
