TJIE PKINCIPLES OF HORTICULTURE. 
499 
boundless west. Had his extreme modesty allowed him, our 
amiable friend would also have reminded you of that interest¬ 
ing fact in the history of the settlement of our country, that 
population follows very closely the parallels of latitude, and he 
would thus have proved the legitimate claim to a portion of 
your young renown that is due to New England. 
In traveling rapidly over portions of your beautiful state, 
the stranger cannot fail to be struck with the evidences that 
everywhere present themselves of the successful thrift of your 
people; with the vast extent of cultivated lands; the amount 
of timber planting, the general tasteful embellishment of 
homes, and, if he be an observant agriculturist, he will also 
rejoice to see that you already realize the value of the truths, 
that were so well and so happily presented to you last evening, 
as to the necessity of preserving the fertility of. your virgin 
soils. He will rejoice to see vast fields dotted with the enrich¬ 
ing contents of the barn-yards. Not waiting for your fields to 
be exhausted by a bad, system of farming, which would sooner 
or later compel you to pull up stakes, and to seek new fields 
in another land of promise, your attachment to your homes in 
the beautiful Wisconsin leads you to keep up and, let us hope, 
even to increase, the richness of her Ian d. 
He who comes with the light of the geologist sees your 
plains, their swells and swales, and crystal lakes, with the 
deepest interest, and acquires an insight into the secret arcana of 
the formation of your country, which enables him to understand 
one great cause of your success, and also to know why your 
prosperity may and should be sempiternal, if you choose so to 
will it. When the geologist studies the nature of your soils 
and sub-soils, he finds that they are not (as is often the case 
otherwheres) dependent upon the nature of the underlying 
rocks, which are here generally concealed and covered to a 
great depth, and which may have contributed in but a tilfling 
degree to the overlying strata of clays, gravels and sands, that 
make up the soil. In many portions of the United States the 
geologist may safely predict the particular crops, and in the 
fruits, even the particular varieties that will succed or fail in a 
