Johnston, Jamies. Finlay ~
The state of agriculture

in Europe

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L. ANNUAL EXHIBITION

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| NEW-YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,

AT SYRACUSE,
September i3th, 1849.
—_———_—___—=- + 00+ -<—-__--__—

BY JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, F. BR. S., 8. L. & E.

"4 HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, AND AUTHOK
or ““ LECTURES ON AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.”

—_—__—_—_—_— + 9

; ALBANY:
WEED, PARSONS & COMPANY.

1850.

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Ata meeting of the New-York State Agricultural Society, held at
Syracuse, September 13th, 1849, the following Resolution, on motion of
Hon. Henry WaceEr, was unanimously adopted:

_ Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Prorzssor
_ Jounston, for his able and eloquent Address delivered before the Society,
and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication. 2a

B. P. JOHNSON, | ae

THE STATE OF AGRICULTURE IN EUROPE,

AN ADDRESS, &o.

Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:

One of the first lessons a European has to learn after he
has landed on the shores of this new world, is to dispos-
sess his mind of all those associations, rich and rare, with
which the history 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 people 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 aspirations after similar renown.

In the old world, I have just left, there exists an ancient
Syracuse, rich in all those bounties of heaven, which

6

especially favour the husbandman—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 frequent wars, by foreign conquerors, and by the degre-
dation and oppression 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 Romanorum,” and in the language of Livy,
“nopulo Romano, pace ac bello fidissimum annone substi-
dium.” Now cast down and degraded, the successors —
scarcely to be called the sons of the same people — languish
in comparative indolence; and though the bounties of na-
ture are ever fresh and newas in ‘its palmiest days, there
are few countries in which agriculture and the arts of life
are in a more debased condition than in 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
still live, on some future day to be lighted up anew,
and more ‘successfully, into’'a steady and enduring flame,
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 en-

a |

i i

7

ergy of the Teutonic blood —above all, emulous of the
agricultural renown of the Syracuse of distant times, and
by the application of more mind and knowledge, to a less
exuberant soil in a less favored clime, 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 with you to discourse upon
scientific agriculture, in a city which recalls the vast ferti-
lity of the plains and slopes of Sicily —may the modern
name like the ancient, descend to after times, associated
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-atlantie au-
dience. 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 impor-
tance of agriculture; its fundamental connection with the
welfare and power of every state; the estimation in which
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 highest
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 greater. attention and. respect
which this art and its cultivators now every where demand,
and are every where receiving. 'These topics are familiar
to you, and you are toorich in native talent-to require a
stranger to address you on generalities like these.

Nor does my very recent arrival in the United States, en-
title me as yet to speak from my own observation upon the

8

existing condition of agriculture on this side of the Atlantic.
I have selected, therefore, as the subject of my present
address, the existing condition of agriculture in Europe.

There are two very different ways in which I might
bring this subject before you. I might illustrate in the
abstract, the amount of practical and scientific knowledge
which Europe possesses in regard to each of the depart-
ments of rural economy, which its climate enables it to
prosecute. ‘T'aking the methods of the best practical men,
and adding to these the knowledge of those most skilful
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 skilfully carried into operation. Or I might take
you from country to country, and show you as we passed
hastily along, the character of its rural population, the
excellences 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, would 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 endeavour 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.

j
,

9 4

SwepEeNn. — Commencing in the north of Europe with
the Scandinavian peninsula, I would remark, that in Swe-
den — especially since the the accession of the late king,
Carl Johan, better known by the name of Bernadotte—
much attention has been paid to agriculture. The im-
provement and increase of the flocks of sheep for the
growth of wool, the introduction of better breeds of stock,
of newer implements, and of an improved rotation of
crops—have successively received much attention ; but
of late years the great force of the people has been ex-
pended on the drainage of the lakes and marshes with
which the country is so plentifully studded over. The
agricultural 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 intro-
duced, it is only just to the energy of Sweden to say
that no European people, in proportion to its natural re-
sources, has done more during the last twenty years in the
reclamation of improveable land from the dominion of
overflowing water.

Further advances also are secured by the translation,
especially from the English, of the best works on scientific
agriculture, under the auspices of the Academy of Agri-
culture, and by the establishment 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 generally applying them shall have come.
2

‘ 10

Russ1a.—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. Pe-
tersburg, laboriously and skilfully cultivated fields may be
seen, while herds of improved Swiss and short horned
cattle are carefully reared on the domains of the rich no-
bility. The Emperor also, who knows well the impor-
tance of this art to the strength and prosperity of his do-
minions, sets an example to his subjects by the efforts he
makes to introduce a better system of culture among the
serfs on the Imperial estates, by the establishment 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, never-
theless, is half a wilderness. Millions of acres of perpe-
tual forest cover rich soils which there are no hands to
till. The value of an estate is measured not by the num-
ber of acres it contains, but by the number of souls which
live upon, cultivate, and are sold along with it. As in
the first clearings 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
plough and exhausted in its turn. In no country of the
world, with the exception of Northern America, is there so
vast a field for the useful emigration of agricultural settlers,
as in the mighty Empire of Russia. But languge, and re-
ligion and political institutions, oppose barriers which the
Saxon, and I may say the Teutonic races generally, feel
themselves unable to overcome.”

* For information on the state of agriculture in Russia, see also a paper
by the Hon. Mr. Slocum, in the Transactions of the N. Y. State Agricul-
tural Society, for 1848, p. 638.

11

Germany.—lIn order to obtain a correct opinion of the
agriculture of a country, a man must not only view the
country with his own eyes, but his eyes must be taught
both what to look for, and how to look for it. The reports
of travellers who are unskilled in rural matters — the edu-
cational institutions of the country itself—and even its
agricultural statistics, are all unsafe guides where a really
correct appreciation is desired of its true position in refer-
ence to this important branch of social economy. This
observation is illustrated by the actual condition of the
several branches of rural economy when compared with
the state of agricultural instruction, and with the attention
which has been paid to statistics in the different Kingdoms
of Germany, and in France.

Saxony.—In Saxony, a country greatly favored by na-
ture in the character of its soils, the chief attention of the
great landholders and of the government, has been long
directed to the improvement of the breed of sheep, from
which the celebrated Saxon wool is obtained. This King-—
dom exhibits generally a very different appearance from the
neighbouring country of Bavaria. In passing from the
latter kingdom to the former, you “seem to pass,” says
Mr. Royer, “from the desert into the land of promise.”
“'T'wo-thirds of the rich proprietors in Saxony,” he ob-
serves, “cultivate their own properties, and have establish-
ed an order, neatness, and method, which, though far from
agricultural perfection, you seek for in vain in France.”

WorremBere.—tIn the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, where
the instruction at the agricultural school of Hohenheim and
elsewhere, is better organized, and at this moment more
famed, than in any other part of Germany, and where, in
fact, the art of culture as a whole is the farthest advanced,

12

the general cultivation is described by Mr. Royer as being
melancholy, and, at a distance ftom the capital, very dif
ferent from what the eulogies of authors had led him to
suppose.

Bavaria.—In Bavaria we find an imposing array of in-
stitutions and means of instruction, specially provided for
the rural community, which are fitted to impress the superfi-
cial observer with a high idea of its agricultural condition.
As in Wurtemberg, there is a central school of agriculture.
There are also Chairs of Rural Economy in the Universities,
and more than twenty Chairs of Agriculture in the Semin-
aries and polytechnic schools of the provinces, besides a
general Agricultural Society, counting more than 8,000
members. "These facts convey the impression of much
zeal on the part of the government ; much interest in agri-
culture on the part of the people; and an advanced state
of the art of culture in the kingdom generally. But “the
miserable aspect of Bavarian agriculture would lead one
to suppose that all these means of encouragement are
very ineflicacious.” (Royer.)

The schools are badly organized or conducted. The
great land-owners are indifferent on the subject of agricul-
tural improvement, while the miserably defective condition
of the roads and other means of internal communication
indicate, that even the government which has organized all
the formal apparatus we have mentioned, is not itself alive
to the most fundamental element of agricultural progress.

Prussia cannot boast either of its practical agriculture,
or of its system of agricultural instruction. It is a proof
of how very little has in past ages been done in the way
of teaching the rural population the principles of the art
of culture, that Prussia should so long have derived an

13

undeserved celebrity from the existence of a private agricul-
tural school at Mégelin, established in 1806, and conducted
till his death in 1819, by the distinguished Von 'Thaer.
After his death the school he had founded was made a
Royal Academy, and is still in existence. It contains at
present only twenty pupils; and even in Von 'T'HArER’s
time it never contained more than thirty-four. In the
much praised primary schools of Prussia, a little instruc-
tion in gardening is the only teaching which bears an
immediate relation to the future occupations of the rural
population.

In the nature of its soils, indeed, which are sandy, light
enough to be blown by the winds, and apparently almost
sterile, Prussia has much to contend with. ‘This is espe-
cially the case in its more ancient and central Dutchies.
Westphalia and the Rhenish provinces are naturally richer,
and are also more advanced and better cultivated.

Besides, until the revolution of the past year, the bur-
dens or servitudes upon land, of a feudal kind —and of
which in the New World you have no examples, except a
few of a milder form in the seignories of Lower Canada— °
were so onerous and so unequally distributed, as greatly to
retard the development of its agricultural capabilities.
The state of the roads and other means of communication
also, as in Bavaria, and the scarcity of large towns, have
concurred with other causes, in retaining the agriculture
of Prussia in a very backward condition.

Hoiianp.—If from the uplands of Germany we descend
to the lowlands, and especially to that country which in-
cludes the islands at the mouths of the Rhine and the
Scheldt, and the low country stretching northward to the
Zuyder Zee and the Dollart, we shall find reason to stay
our steps and to consider calmly the cause, and purpose,

14

and extent of the wonderful system of canals and em-
bankments which the kingdom of Holland presents.

In a sketch of European agriculture, indeed, Holland is
deserving of distinguished mention. Above all other Eu-
ropean people the Dutch, though slow, have been patient
and persevering in their agricultural labors. Occupying
a few more elevated and fertile alluvial spots, in the midst
of downs and bogs, and marshes and lakes, and the end-
less ramifications of many rivers, they have century
after century struggled against nature. Draining marshes,
pumping out lakes, damming back seas and rivers, re-
claiming bogs, fixing by art the wandering downs, inter-
lacing their country with an interminable net-work of
gigantic canals ;— by such labors as these, they have ex-
tended the productive surface of their country, secured its
possession, and made its natural riches available. And
what makes their praise the greater and more deserved, is
the constant watchfulness and care which the retention of
their country demands. Exposed on the average of the
last thirteen centuries to one great sea or river flood, every
seven years, the possession of the land they have gained,
is never secure. Lying below the actual level of the sea,
large tracts of it are only preserved by the huge dykes
that surround them, and to maintain these dykes requires
unceasing vigilance, and a large yearly expenditure of
money.

And though in past times the Hollanders have done
great engineering works, yet the spirit of the sires has not
degenerated in their living sons. The draining of the
Haarlem lake, now in progress, is the boldest mechanical
effort ever yet made in the cause of agriculture in any
country, and promises to add no less to the material
wealth, than to the engineering and constructive fame of
the United Provinces.

i a |

15

I feel a pleasure in thus adverting to the impression
made upon my own mind, during my various tours in
Holland, in the presence of a meeting of agriculturists,
many of whom may inherit from the early settlers of New
York, a portion of that industrious and patient blood,
which makes every end sure to the determined and _per-
severing man.”

I may mention as an indication of the early desire of
the Dutch authorities to promote the diffusion of Agricul-
tural knowledge, that a very old regulation prescribes at-
tendance on agricultural lectures as a necessary branch of
study to the established clergy of Holland.t And though
in that, as in many other countries, men of the old school
at present act as a drag on the progress of scientific agri-
culture, yet enlightened and zealous minds are at work in
various parts of the Netherlands, and advance is gradually
being made. The name of Mutper ought especially to
be mentioned as most eminent among the scientific men
of Holland, not only in advancing pure science, but in
advocating and promoting its general applications to the
agriculture of his native country.

Iraty.— From Holland turn for a moment to Italy, in
which country drainage works somewhat akin to those of
the Dutch, form the proudest monuments of which even
that famed land can boast, of the victory which perse-
vering intelligence can achieve over the difficulties and
seeming hostility of nature.

* For a fuller account of the Rural Industry and Drainage of Holland,
which I wrote for the Edinburgh Review, see vol. 86, p. 419, of that
work.

t This must be considered an admirable provision, enabling the pastor
to advise in regard to the temporal pursuits, no less than the spiritual
affairs of his flock.

16

Did time permit, I might present to you a most interest-
ing historical sketch of the changes in agricultural con-
dition and capability which that country has undergone
from the period of the ancient Etrurians to the present
day. And to the man of science, such a sketch would be
the more interesting, from the circumstance that in all the
changes which have taken place, the physical and geolog-
ical structure of the country, has exercised a far more
prominent and permanent influence, than either the re-
markable industry and constructive skill of the Etruscan
inhabitants, or the hostile incursions of its foreign in-
vaders.

To the rich alluvial plains of Lombardy, of which rice
and Indian corn, and wheat and abundant milk, are the
natural productions ; and to ‘Tuscany, in which something
of the ancient industry and persevering practical skill of
the old Etrurians* still survives, the agricultural enquirer
must proceed to see the bright side of Italian cultivation.

But it is in Tuscany chiefly that he will find the most
interesting evidence of the conquering power of the living
mind over the obstacles of physical nature. ‘The Maremme
of Tuscany and the marshes of the Val di Chiana, like the
Campagna and the Pontine marshes of the Roman domi-
nions, have long breathed forth that pestilential malaria
which, like the summer exhalations of the sea islands and
river mouths of your Southern states, carries on its wings
fever and lingering ague and frequent death. It is one of
the great modern triumphs of engineering skill, applied to
the promotion of rural industry —second only to the gigan-

* To those who are desirous of obtaining the means of forming clear
notions of the physical structure of Italy, of its climatic conditions in the
times of the ancient Etrurians, and of the industrial skill as well as the
social relations of this people, I venture to recommend a perusal of Denis’s
Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria.

17

tic labors of the Dutch, of which I have spoken, and to the
artificial drainage of our English fens—that the terrors of
the Maremme have in a measure been bridled in—that the
Val di Chiana, in so far as it lies within the borders of
Tuscany, has been drained and dried—and that cheerful
health and rich crops prevail over large tracts of country; in
which it used to be almost certain death to linger.

Among a Republican people, I, who owe allegiance toa
constitutional Monarchy, may be permitted to name to you
Leopold the First, of Tuscany, as the principal author of
all this good. Whatever our opinions on other matters may
be, we shall all, I am sure, agree in this, that those men
are great and worthy to be honored, who having been
gifted by God with large means and great opportunities,
make use of those means and opportunities for the glory of
God and the good of their fellow creatures—who, instead
of war and scarcity, and suffering and death, promote peace
and plenty, and health, and the multiplication and prolon-
gation of human life—the-moral lesson of whose life
inculcates the truth that man’s proudest triumphs are not
those he achieves over his fellows, but those which he
gains over himself, or by which he compels the unwilling
powers of nature to minister to the material comforts. of
mankind—who encourages what will unite instead of dis-
tract, what will cement instead of divide the nations of the
world-——as that broad’ belt of water which laves alike the
shores of your countrv and mine, instead of separating, as
in former years, now binds us together more closely than
if the same continent contained us.

As the promoter of such ends for twenty-five long years
in his country of Tuscany, the name of Leopold the First
will not sound unpleasantly even in your republican ears.*

* For an account of the reign of Leopold, see Napier’s Florentine History,
Vol. VI, and for a detail, with drawings, plans and maps, of the engineer-

3

18

FLANDERS AND Betarum.— In Flanders, both Belgian
and French, you are probably prepared for an admission
on my part, of great agricultural skill and success. I am
compelled, however, to confess my own impression to be,
that a great portion of what has been written upon Flemish
husbandry, partakes of the character of a romance.* 'The
cultivators of Belgian Flanders have the merit of raising
fair crops from certain tracts of poor and sandy soil, of
husbanding and applying manures so as to keep such land
in culture, and of skilfully varying their crops so as to
prevent a premature exhaustion. But no knowledge of the
general principles of agriculture is widely diffused among
them. The improvement of wet and of heavy clay soils, ex-
cept by open ditches, is almost unknown. Improved imple-
ments and thorough drainage, and modern modes of manur-
ing, and some small instruction at least in the elements of
science as applied to agriculture, have still to be introduced
among them, before they can rank in general knowledge or
in skilful practice with the farmers of Scotland or England.

And, indeed, in Belgium as in France, the progressive
subdivision of property opposes a growing obstacle to that
general amelioration of agricultural practice, which the
wants of a numerous people and the progress of knowledge
demand. Where the average extent of properties and —
farms over a whole province is already reduced to about
an English acre, we cannot look for the introduction of
any of those improvements which demand the purchase of
new or comparatively costly implements, the rearing and

ing operations by which the Maremme were dried, see Memorie sul
Bonificamente delle Maremme T'uscane, by Fernando Tarlini, Florence, 1838.

t L’ Agriculture Pratique de la Flandre, par M. J. L. Van Agtprorck, Paris.
1830, and Memoire sur L’ Agriculture de la Flandre Francaise et sur I’ Economie
Rurale, pas J. CorpiEr, Paris, 1823.

19

feeding of multitudes of stock, the employment of hired
labor, or generally the application of capital to the land.
As in Ireland, the subdivision or morcelling of the tillage
farms, has already, in whole districts, been carried to the
starvation limit. As into Ireland, the potato failure brought
with it into Belgian Flanders, famine and disease, and
large emigration,— and notwithstanding all that wise go-
vernments can do, it is to be feared that on the recurrence
of similar visitations, similar social evils will in both coun-
tries again re-appear.

France.—In France I need hardly inform you that
practical agriculture is far in arrear. In Normandy the
mixture of Teutonic blood has probably some connection
with the superiority of the husbandry of this province as
compared with most of the other parts of the kingdom. It
is certain at least, that notwithstanding the many efforts
made by persons in power to promote the introduction and
adoption of better methods, the general farming of La
Belle France advances with comparative slowness.

This country indeed presents another striking instance
of the small connection which may exist between the
existence of extensive means of agricultural iustruction,
provided by the central government, and the practical skill
of the rural population.

In 1848 there existed in France one hundred and fifty-
seven agricultural societies — six hundred and sixty-four
agricultural committees —twenty-two model farms, some
of which had schools attached to them—and fifteen schools
and chairs of agriculture and agricultural penitentiaries.
In the early part of 1849, under the auspices of the repub-
lican government, and as part of the plan of M. Fouret,
then Minister of Agriculture, twenty-one farming schools
had already been opened —a national agricultural uni-

20

versity was about to be established on the farms in the
little park of Versailles, and a hundred and twenty-two ag-
ricultural societies, and three hundred minor institutions,
had participated in the funds voted for the encouragement
of Agriculture.

Though it is unquestionable that a country may attain a
high rank in agriculture without the aid of formal agricul-
tural schools—provided, as in Scotland, other early mental
training is placed within the easy reach of the rural popu-
lation—and that in spite of numerous schools, if other
obstacles intervene, the cultivators of a country may lag
far behind ;—yet both common sense and experience show
that of two nations of the same blood, placed otherwise in
the same circumstances, the one which teaches the princi-
ples of agriculture in its schools, will exhibit the most
productive harvests on its fields; and that, as in England
and Scotland now, a time will come in the agricultural
history of every country, when old means and methods
will fail to maintain the rural community in a flourishing
condition, and when every new means of fertility which
advancing knowledge can supply, must be made generally
known, and become generally-employed. Such are the
simplest and most common sense arguments in favor of
agricultural teaching—the inutility of which might be
argued with some show of reason, from the comparatively
small progress yet visible among the fields and farmers of
France and Bavaria. |

The agricultural statistics of France, which the govern-
ment has collected and published in great detail, would
supply many interesting subjects of reflection, were I at
liberty to dwell longer on this part of Europe. I may only
mention—as pregnant with thought and instruction in
regard to the condition, the food, and the general mode of
living of the rural classes of France—the fact, that the

21

number of conscripts who are rejected on account of defi-
cient health, strength and stature, is constantly on the
increase; that forty per cent are turned back from this
cause; and that though since 1789 the standard has
been three times reduced, as large a proportion of the
conscripts is below the required height, (now five feet, two
inches,) as ever.—(Rubichon.) Such facts as this show
how closely the discussion of agricultural is connected with
that of the most profound social evils.

SwitzeErRLanp.—To Switzerland, I only allude as one
of those countries in which the influence of natural intelli-
gence and a fair share of early instruction, has been brought
to bear most successfully on the improvement of the soil,
and especially of the breeds of stock which are best adapted
to its peculiar dairy husbandry. 'Those advances which
require the application of capital and science, such as tho-
rough draining and special manuring, are there, however,
still unmade; and it will probably be many years, before, in
these respects, the cultivators of the Swiss vallies and
mountain slopes, can closely imitate the present improved
practices of the British Islands.

Sparn.—The agricultural condition of Spain, suggests
melancholy reflections. The central table lands of this
country* are reckoned among the finest wheat growing dis-
trictsin the world. ‘The culture isrude and imperfect. The
soil is scratched with a primitive plough, and is seldom
manured, yet the returns are said to be prodigious, and the
quality of the grain excellent. But where nature does’

* The two elevated plains of New and Old Castile, and that of La
Mancha, separated from each other by the granites and metamorphic
rocks of the Sierra Nevada, are composed of a white limestone, occasion*
ally covered with the drift of other rocks. These plains are burned up
in summer, so as to produce no grass till the October rains fall, but they
yield magnificent crops of wheat. (Sir H. Head.)

22

much, man too often contents himself with doing little.
Amid all this plenty, the peasant is miserable. He lives in
a cabin of baked mud, or in burrows scooped out from the
friable hillocks, ignorant of the luxuries of furniture, and
barely possessing the necessaries of life. The want of roads
and of means of easy transport, makes his produce almost
worthless, so that a comparatively spare population exists,
and much wretchedness in the centre of fertile fields and
a land abundant in corn.

We sometimes think ourselves unfortunate to have been
born, or to be doomed to live where clouded suns impart
a lessened light and heat ; or where the frosts of winter bind
up for many months the hardened earth. Yet in such
climes, man more really lives, and exercises a truer domin-
ion Over inanimate things, than where tropical skies appear
to prepare for him an unceasing enjoyment. Where mind
and mental energy are dormant, he only vegetates or exer-
cises his brute passions. Where by perpetual struggles he
subdues the adverse elements, bends circumstances to his
will, forces a copious abundance from an unwilling soil
and in spite of inclement seasons— there he most truly lives,
and amidst his hardships enjoys life most; there refreshing
sleep visits him with her balmiest breath, and in. the power
of mind over matter, which his success displays, he brings
out more clearly the claim of man to a likeness with Him
who is all mind, and to whose slightest intimation all mat-
ter bends.

Great Britrarn.—In striking contrast to the case of
Spain, is the agriculture of the Island in which I was born,
and from which so many of your forefathers have come.
I need not tell you of our uncertain climate—our fickle sky,
our frequent rains, our late frosts in spring, our early frosts
in autumn, the cold winds and temperate suns of our most

23

favouring summer, the mists and fogs that settle over us at
every season of the year. I only remind you of these things,
and ask you to contrast with them the large crops we can
reap, the high rents we can pay, the poor lands we have en-
riched, the local climate we have ameliorated, the wide
wastes we have subdued beneath the plough, the northern
districts we have tamed down to the production of wheat,
the large population we have reared, and in ordinary sea-
sons are still able to feed, and—amid all the croakings and
complaints of individuals and of classes — the vast amount
of material comfort and of intellectual elevation which
the island exhibits. How much kinder, on the whole, the
Deity has really been to us than to prolific and sunny
Spain; how much better our fortunes as a people, how
much happier our individual lot ?

Practica, ImprRoveMENTs In GREAT BriTaIn.—
Among the greatest of those practical improvements in the
treatment of the land, by means of which British agricul-
ture has been advanced to its present condition, I may
mention :

Ist. The alternate husbandry—a judicious rotation of
crops. In this walk Flanders was probably the earliest
among modern European countries to make decided and.
important advances.

2d. The introduction of thorough drainage—To a cer-
tain extent and in a certain way, under drains have been
made in almost every country of Europe, and are at least
as old as the time of the Romans. But the necessity and
almost universal profit of the system as it is now understood
and practiced, was first demonstrated in Scotland, and owes:
its general introduction to Mr. Smrru, of Deanston.

3d. As the complement of thorough drainage, the intro-
duction of deep and sub-soil ploughing. 'These practices.

24

have renovated shallow, worn out soils, by bringing up new
materials ; have opened a passage for the roots to descend
deeper in search of food; and have provided a more ready
outlet for the surface waters into the drains below.

Ath. The judicious and continued application of lime —
according to principles now beginning to be generally
understood. When applied without the requisite know-
ledge, or without regard to future consequences, the use of
lime has been, and will still be, one of the most ready
means of exhausting the most fertile soils.

5th. The use of Bones—in various forms, as an applica-
tion to land in various conditions, and. for the growth of
various crops.

6th. Generally, what is called high farming, compre-
hending :

a. The culture of green crops extensively.

b. The making of rich home, and the purchase of valua-
ble foreign manures of various kinds to a great extent.

c. The rearing and feeding of improved breeds of stock,
for the conversion of one form of produce into another,
~which meets with a readier market, or is otherwise more
profitable.

d. The custom of full feeding, both for plants and
animals, from early youth to full maturity.

It is the characteristic of this kind of farming, that it
spares no reasonable expense—in implements, in manures,
in labour—as all experience has shown that a liberal
treatment of the land, makes the land liberal in return ; and
that to the stingy farmer, the land is most niggard of her
crops. |
7th. The introduction of lighter and better contrived
implements, of machines to economise labor, and of horses
having a quicker step.

25

Such are generally the practical methods or processes by
which British agriculture has been advanced to its present
condition.

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 interests of the English
farmer, and may he neither uninteresting nor uninstructive
to you.

Were an intellectual foreigner, previously unacquainted |
with Great Britain, with the character of its people, or with
its social condition, to be informed regarding this country,
that though occupying only a small and thickly peopled
corner of Europe, shrouded for many 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 agricul-
tural body is the predominating 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 competi-
tion 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 opportunity to study,
not only the character and habits of its people, but the
modes of culture practised by them, with so much success,
in a region so unfavored by nature.

4

26

And were he actually to come among us, it would be
easy for him, having started from the Land’s end, to pro-
ceed from one warm hearted and hospitable farmer to
another, till the Pentland Firth arrested 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 circumstances 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 regulations, yet feel
alike that to resolute men the conquest of the stubborn 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 firmness, 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 au-

~dience should accuse me of over exalting, by such lan-
guage 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 the spirit and energy of British farmers, may, I begin

* For two recent estimates of the condition of Agriculture in Great

Britain, see—

Weccueruiin. Ueber Englische Land-wirthschaft und deren Anwending auf Land-
wirthschaftlihe Verhdltnisse insbesondere Deutschlands. Stuttgard and T'ub-
ingen, 1845. And

Coitman’s British Agriculture. London and Boston, 1840.

27

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 especially, have been; and in the gra-
dual conquest which persevering labor has in these states
achieved over drifted rocks and hungry gravels, and sandy
barrens, and ungenial swamps, I discover the resolute
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
Hurope 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 enquire, 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 agri-
culture of our time—what you no doubt expect me briefly
to speak of, the direct applications, 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 adopt-
ed, 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

28

knowledge, practical and theoretical, we already possess.
A single principle explains and thus recommends or forbids
many practices, according to the circumstances of the soil,
place, or season.

Third. 'To enlarge our actual knowledge by new dis-
coveries susceptible of practical application.

On these several objects of natural science, in its appli-
cations to agriculture, it would be out of place at present
to dilate. It will be sufficient if I briefly draw your atten-
tion to some of the general results, in reference to rural
economy, at which science has already arrived.

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 culture — such as

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 depres-
sions, 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 Natural History Survey, afford abundant illustrations
of the relations of this science to practical agriculture—or

3d. The relations of Meteorology and Botany conjoined
—such as
a. The adaptation of certain plants to certain climates —

29

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 maiza, brand,
&c., and the circumstances of local climate most favourable
to their appearance — or

Ath. The relations of Geology and Vegetable Structure
conjoined —such as

That certain plants and soils are mutually adapted to
each other,because of the special structure and natural
habits of the plants, 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 turnip and barley soils,
distinguishable readily, by the practical man, from. the
wheat and clover soils. ‘These differences are indepen-
dent of chemical composition, and are not to be explained
upon chemical principles. They are dependent upon the
special relation which the structure and natural habits of
the plants bear to the physical characters of the medium
in which their roots are made to grow—or

5th. The general indications of Geology and Meteo-
rology conjoined—such as

The relations of the nature of the rocks, of the soil, and
of the fall of rain taken together —

a. 'T’o 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

30

6th. The general relations of Zoology and Animal
Physiology.

a. To breeds of domestic animals, and to the preserva-
tion of their purity.

b. To the rearing, feeding and general tending of stock.

c. 'T'o 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. hat a fertile soil, in addition to various organic com-
pounds, contains at least eleven different mineral substances.

b. That plants contain, usually, or in most of their parts,
the greater 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 dif-
ferent 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

8th. 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 produce soils which with special treatment
will prove fertile and profitable 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 natu-
rally unfertile.

31

I. ReLtatrions or GEoLocy To AGRICULTURE.

From any one of these general topics, I might select
beautiful examples of the close bearings of science upon
profitable farming — but. time does not permit me to illus-
trate in detail any one of the general relations to which 1
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
uninteresting.

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 geo-
logy and practical agriculture — how the manufacture and
abundance of valuable manures, for example, 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 na-
turally dsitinguished 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
tenaceous, soapy, unctuous quality of the soils, with which
the carriage wheels of travellers in that State, in wet wea-
ther, become familiar, is owing to the same cause.

* Lyell’s Second Visit to the United States, p. 42, 89.

32

So your zones of differing timber, as you ascend from
the alluvial swamps of the shores in your Southern states,
across the eocene and cretaceous beds to the mica slate,
gneiss and granite of the Appalachian 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 magnolia, the red maple, and the cotton wood of the
lowest swampy spot — the hickory, oak, magnolia, beech,
walnut, tulip tiee, and holly, of the dry alluvial bluffs—
the perpetual pines of the tertiary (eocene) sands—the
naked prairie of the cretaceous marls—and the mixed
oaks, hickory and pines which appear on the pirmary
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 with-
out their influence 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 influenced but
actually, as it were, prescribed, by the geological character
of the district in which they have been brought up and to
which they intend to move.* So it isamong you. “'Those
who go southwards from Virginia to North and South
Carolina, and thence to Georgia and Alabama, follow, as
by instinct, the corresponding zones of country. The in-
habitants 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
geological formations in the sea islands, to their fish and
oysters.”

* See an article in the Edinburgh Review for March, 1849.
t Lyell’s Second Visit to the United States, p. 110.

33

And to this illustration of a fact, which may be proved,
I believe, by observation in every country of the globe, Sir
Cuar.es Lyez adds a sentence, from which I am sure you
will at once draw an important, practical lesson. “On
reaching Texas, all these different classes are at fault, be-
cause the cretaceous strata in that country consist of a hard,
compact, siliceous limestone, which defies the decomposing
action of the atmosphere, and forms table lands of bare rock,
entirely unlike the marls, clay and sand, of the same age,
in Alabama.”

The tillers of the red land, ofthe pine barrens, of the
marshy prairies, 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 culture 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. 3
_ In my own country, I have been accustomed to press
upon the agricultural community the importance of such
geological knowledge to 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 them.* But to you whom I now address, who
already occupy, or in connection with kindred blood are
destined to subdue and people, nearly half a world—how
much more important must such knowledge be! Your
westward movement will continue for many generations,

* See the Author’s Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, Fifth
Edition, p. 616.

34

and how much surer will the way to wealth be to your
hardy poineers, if they have been taught in their early
homes, not 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 acountry 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 unde-
cided voter in this great commonwealth of the worth of
those aids which science offers you, in developing the
resources of the soil.

IJ. Revations 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 already aware, are far too multiplied to admit even of
enumeration. Of the practical ends which have been
more or less perfectly attained by means of chemistry, I
might mention such general ones as these :—

1st. In what general exhaustion consists, how it is pro-
duced, and how it may be repaired ?

2d. In what special exhaustion consists, how it is

35

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 ser-
viceable ; what, with a view to special purposes, they ought
specially to contain; and how they are to be artificially
prepared ?

But such topics are too general and indefinite to make a
sure impression on the mind of the practical farmer, in the
brief moments I have spent in enumerating them.

I mention further, therefore, such special points as the
following :—-

lst. How to bring crops to earlier ripeness in late and
elevated districts.

2d. How to reduce the straw producing tendency of the
land.

3d. How to hasten or promote, or to push forward lag-
gard, yellow, and stunted vegetation.

Ath. 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.

6th. How to improve the deficient feeding quality of
turnip, 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.

8th. 'To prepare artificial manures, which shall nourish
any crop on any available soil.

9th. To promote growth on slow, 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.

36

11th. 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 the 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. :

15th. How to prevent the disease called fingers and toes,
in turnips 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 which chemical investigations have al-
ready led us.

They also supply answers to many practical questions,
such as :—

lst. 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 ?

Ath. Why lime produces a more marked benefit on one
soil than it does upon another?

5th. Why one variety of lime is more useful generally,
or in particular 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 capable 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 ex-

37

amples will sufficiently indicate both the kind of connec-
tion which exists between practical agriculture and prac-
tical chemistry; and the kind of uses to which such
scientific knowledge may hereafter 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 or Human Sxiiu.—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 forget to acknowledge how
very limited his knowledge is, and how feeble his capacites
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 drought, such as half a century past
has scarcely seen, dries up our meadows and pastures, and
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 enquiry 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 out the laws by which hurricanes are regulated —has

38

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 droughts of summer under reasonable
control. Such hopes we may entertain, not as sources of
pride, but as stimulants to exertion —for in so greatly reward-
ing the past exercise 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.

OspsTACLES To Procgress.— There are, however, in
every country, certain obstacles which oppose themselves
to the progress of scientific agriculture, as a branch of
knowledge, or to its practical application in the improve-
ment of the soil.

I do not refer to those physical or local obstacles of
climate, elevation 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 belonging 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 agri-
culture, 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 plough—or with the shape and manage-
ment of the drill machine, or the harrow.

39

2d. The small amount of talent hitherto in all countries
considered necessary to fita man to become an excellent
farmer. This not only lowers the general education and
attainments of the agricultural class, and the estimation in
which they are held —but it unfits them, as a body, readily
to appreciate the labors, or to listen to the counsels of men
of science, however prudent and practical they may be.

3d. The special deficiency, among all grades of the agri-
cultural community, (in England among landlords, among
tenants and among laborers,) of any instruction in the
elementary parts of those branches of knowledge by which
the principles of agriculture are especially iliustrated.

Ath. The extreme sub-division of the land, which you may
not see in this country for many generations, but which
already exists as a great evil in some of the countries of
Europe. It prevents the use of improved implements, and
therefore the encouragement of agricultural mechanics —
because the farmer is too poor to buy anything but the
merest necessaries. It prevents also the purchase of ma-
nures, natural or artificial, to any extent—the employment
of paid labor in farming —and generally all those forms of
improvement which demand an outlay of capital, or to
which the occupation of a considerable breadth of land is a
necessary pre-requisite.

5th. An obstacle peculiar to your country, and to its pre-
sent transition state—and it is really a serious obstacle to
improvement —is the feeble local attachment by which the
proprietors of the more newly settled districts are bound
to their farms. This appears in the fact that so many of
your farms are for sale. Few families have yet become
so attached to their locations as to be unwilling to sell
them, if a fair offer be made. ‘The head of the family
trusts to his own skill to do better elsewhere for all his
household, with the money for which they may be sold.

AQ

This state of things will pass away as age creeps over
your commonwealths and institutions, but in the mean-
time it operates as a serious hindrance to the expenditure
of money in embellishment or in costly improvements,
which might possibly not enhance, in a_ proportionate
_ degree, the value of these properties in the market.

I merely mention these social obstacles, for although
’ some of them do, as I am informed, exist to a certain
extent in this State of New York, yet I would rather
express my high opinion of the much good I have found
among you, than appear to detract from your just deserts,
by discovering and commenting upon wants and defects
which in your hurry to get forward, you have as yet
scarcely had time to discover, much less to supply or
remove.

ENCOURAGEMENT TO AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN THE
Unitep Statres.—Of the good I see, for example, I may
specify the enlightened desire exhibited by your several
State governments, to promote the applications of science
to your home agriculture, as it is strikingly shown in the
numerous surveys and reports which they have caused to
be made and published, in respect to the geology and agri-
cultural capabilities of the several parts of the Union. In
this respect your State of New York occupies a most distin-
guished position, and its inhabitants will no doubt reap
from their well directed exertions, a rich harvest of deserved
fruit.

Again—this great Agricultural Fair, the implements and
stock here exhibited, the countless numbers who have en-
tered theshow yard tosee them, and who nowsurround us—
impress upon a foreign visitor, the obvious usefulness and
efficient management of your Agricultural Societies, how
much they are doing, and how zealously they are sup-

41

ported. 'T'o those at a distance, who cannot look upon
you with their own eyes, your annual publications speak.
Thave myself been both interested and instructed by the
former volumes of the Transactions of your Society, and
I have heard them, in a public meeting in Scotland, most
highly spoken of, and favorably contrasted with the pub-
lished proceedings, even of the Highland and Agricultural
Society of Scotland. It gives me pleasure to express my
opinion, that the volume for the present year is not only
equal to its predecessors, but contains matter highly credi-
table to the Society, and useful to the advancement of
scientific agriculture.

Farther— The interest which, as individuals, you take
in the promotion of agriculture, by the acquisition and
application of new knowledge, may be gathered from two
circumstances — first, from the establishment and liberal
endowment of chairs of science in connection with agri-
culture, by private parties, in two, at least, of your state
universities — a liberality at once most patriotic and most
judiciously applied; and second, from the causes which
led to the recent visit to Europe of your countryman,
_ Mr. Comman. Him we were led to look upon as a deputy
from the individual farmers of this and the adjoining
states, to the farmers and agricultural assemblies of Great
Britain —for it was your individual encouragement and
subscriptions, I believe, and those of your societies, which
induced and enabled him to come among us. As your
deputy, he was every where received— every where kindly,
I believe, as so kind hearted a man deserved to be — and
every where with a desire to give him the fullest infor-
mation on every subject that might be useful to you.

Gentlemen, in the minds of some of your countrymen
whom I have met, not so I hope in yours, a wrong

6

42

impression exists as to the feelings of my countrymen
towards you as a community, or as individuals. We do
not envy or regret your rapid growth and prosperity as a
people—we are proud of it. We do not dislike you in-
dividually—we are predisposed, rather, to see good in you
and to like you. Whatever sour men on either side
of the water may say, you may rest assured that there is
a corner in almost every heart at home, which especially
warms towards the North American, whether from the
Colonies or from the States, and a warm seat at many a
fire side, if he will come and occupy it. It may be old
fashioned, gentlemen, but we all still think at home that
blood is thicker than water, and if any of you doubt it, we
beg you, like Mr. Cotman, to come among us, and honestly
and frankly to try whether it is so or not.

If I were asked to give a special reason why a know-
ledge of the scientific principles of agriculture is more ne-
cessary among you than among any other existing people,
I would mention the great extent of your territorial do-
minion, and the varied soils, climates and cultures, which
your people encounter, as your dominion over the forest
and prairies extends. When you take this fact in connection
with an other, which is no less familiar to you, that a
general set of your population, like a great moving tide, is
carrying them towards the south and west—so that the
old tillage and crops of one year are often deserted by the
mover for a new form of tillage, and the culture of new
crops in the next—you will see how useful to the shifting
agriculturist himself it must be, and how beneficial to the
whole community, that he should possess some degree of fa-
miliarity with those principles, not only of Geology to which
Ihave already made especial allusion, but of Chemistry and
Botany also, which shall enable him in whatever circum-
stances of soil, of climate or of tillage he is- placed, to make

A3

the most of the advantages he happens to possess — to
overcome most easily and most economically the difficulties
he may have to encounter—and to employ at once his
head and hands with skill in bettering his local condition.

As an agricultural people, you possess many advantages
over the nations of Europe. You are not old enough to
have acquired district and state prejudices, which are
difficult to overcome, and which in many parts of Europe,
long oppose, successfully, the importation of improvements
from abroad.

I may mention, as a most intelligible illustration, the in-
troduction of implements imported from other countries,
which in Europe isa very slow process. 'The swing plough
of Scotland, for example, has made its way into many dis-
tricts of England, has been extensively introduced into some
parts of France, Holland, Sweden, and even into Poland
and Russia. But into Germany, where attachment to the
old tools and methods is so very strong, it makes its way
very tardily. And I advert to this instruament—this fun-
damental instrument, I may call it, of the practical farmer —
because I find it mentioned to your credit, by a German
writer, that the swing plough has had a much more willing
and ready reception among you than among his own coun-
try men, and that Germany has already received many
excellent swing ploughs from America.* I have seen
plough irons of Scottish manufacture, in use in various
parts of North America. It is said that plough irons in con-
siderable quantities are now exported from the States in
considerable numbers to England.

Whatever is good in other countries, you are very much
in a condition to adopt atonce. You have, as I have said,
fewer old forms to break through, old methods to abandon,

~ * Ueber Englische Landwirthschaft von A von Weckherlin. Stuttgard,
1845, p. 81.

44

old tools to lay aside, and old rules and regulations to
abolish. Above all, as proprietors, you work every man
for himself and for the profit of his family. Not only are
feudal superiorities, servitudes, serfdom and tithes, un-
known among you, but even rents are not, as with us, to
be made up on two dark days of every year. What ought
to stand in the way then of your rapid progress in this
most important art?

Another great advantage possessed by the agriculturists
of this country, you will both understand and estimate. As
a nation you commence your agricultural career at the point
which we have attained. ‘The eminence which we have
reached after long climbing, you start from. You have the
benefit of all ourknowledgeand experience, and—unwearied’
with previous labor, or satisfied with the idea, as too many
of our farmers are, that you have already done very much—
you must progress beyond what we have at present at-
tained to. And with the intellect and energy you inherit,
you must and will progress. It cannot fail indeed to provea
great blessing to mankind at large, that somany new minds,
unfettered by old restraints of prejudice or partial legislation,
or conventional custom, are now directed in this country
towards the varied arts of social life. Especially must in-
tellectual exertion on your part, in reference to any of the
arts of life, benefit us in Great Britain — whom a common
parentage, individual ties of blood, and a unity of speech,
connect, and whom now the broad Atlantic, more than
bridged over, almost brings together again into a common
home. What you think, reacts upon our thoughts; what
you speak, insensibly affects our speech; and your literature
and ours, are read and have their influence in both coun-
tries. What each discovers sooner becomes property of the
other, than in the case of nations who speak different
tongues; and a step in advance on either side of the

45

Atlantic, carries the arts of*the other side along with it.
We are not selfish —perhaps I might say we are eminently
unselfish —in wishing you to become agricultural im-
provers. But of all the arts, it may be said more truly
of agriculture than of any other, that it is of no country.
The producer of the common staff of human life, ought
in all its perfection, to be the common property of all.
In rivaling each other in our endeavours to push forward
this highest art of life, Britain and America will be striving
only which can do most for the human race. And if we
in Britain should benefit hereafter by the advances you are
destined to make,—beyond what you have obtained from
us, —it will enable us only the more speedily to aid in dif-
fusing a knowledge of these advances among the other
nations of the globe.

What is the moral of this discourse, what its immediate
application to you whom I have the honor to address ?

Is there improvement any where—let it be seen among
you. Is there agricultural progress any where— you ought
not to stand still. Are there means of bettering the modes
of culture any where — you possess the same. Is there
greater knowledge any where—it is within your reach. Is
there energy and determination any where—these qualities
are inherited in as great strength by you as by any other
people. Is the climate favourable any where for special
kinds of culture—you possess all climates, and may take
a leaf from the farming book of every country. Is know-
ledge necessary any where—it is so among you; if not
because of an over-crowded, yet because of a constantly
moving, and at present rather retrograde agricultural popu-
lation.

And if in consequence of its progressive tendency, the
Teuton blood of the Anglo Saxon shade, is destined, as
some believe, to conquer and possess this vast continent

A6

from sea to sea; it is surely the wish and purpose of the
Deity, that such possession should be made a source of
happiness both to the ruling and to the ruled, and a means
of furthering at the same time, that general advancement
of the human race which all philanthropists so ardently
anticipate.

But this conjoined happiness and progression demand
the constant aids of augmenting knowledge. In your
western migrations, you must bear with you, to plant on
your new soil, the arts and sciences and daily discoveries
of the east; and thus will population and civilization ex-
tend together to the shores of the wide Pacific.

And among the branches of knowledge which you will
most usefully carry with you, those which relate to the arts
of rural life, will, above all others, contribute largely to the
temporal welfare of your spreading people. That which
we know in England, you soon learn to master and apply
here ; and what is known in the Empire State, ought, in
like manner, to diffuse itself hence over the vast dominions
of your great confederacy.

Though I have considered it my duty, in conformity with
your request, to lay before you the observations I have put
together in the present address—it would be presumptuous
in me, after what I have seen in this show-yard, and in this
city, to suppose that any thing I could say, would mate-
materially hasten the progress of agriculture among you,
or turn you into any better paths than those you have
already begun to follow. If any man wishes an evidence of
what you are in energy, and what you are capable of in
action, let him come to Syracuse, and look around him.
It was brought as an accusation against the ancient Romans,
that they made a country desolate, and called that peace. It
is the nobler praise of the great modern Republic, that you
find a country desolate, and cover it with people— a wilder

AT

ness, and you plant it with fertile farms—furnished with
rare wigwam encampments, and you strew it over with
splendid palaces and great cities. Energy, discernment,
constructive talent and administrative skill, must all be
united to accomplish such results, so rapidly, so safely, so
securely. I thank you for inviting me to come among you,
that I might see all this, and might enjoy the gratification
which the sight of progress of such a kind imparts. It
will be to me a source of future satisfaction, if I shall be
able, on reflection, to believe that my visit to your country
has in any way contributed to the further or more safe ad-
vancement among you of that pursuit, which is the surest
support of nations—whether in the Old World or in the
New.

S Johnston, James Finlay

452 Weir
J64 The state of agriculture ~

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