tween their base and summit, almost all the plants of the world. Hence, also, that even in the limited extent of the island of Britain, a given elevation on mountains in Devonshire will be adapted for a different agriculture to the same elevation on the Cheviot, Grampian or Sutherland mountains; and while wheat ripens at six hundred feet above the level of the sea in Cornwall, oats will hardly ripen at that height in the Western isles.

1236. Elevation exposes plants and animals to the powerful operation of wind, and in this respect must influence the disposition of the fields, fences, plantations, and buildings of the agriculturist, as well as the plants and animals cultivated. It has some influence also on the density of the air and the supplies of water and vapour, and even in these respects must affect the character of the agriculture. In Switzerland and Norway the upper mountain farms are completely above the mere dense strata of clouds, and their occupiers are often for weeks together without getting a view of the plains or valleys below. 1237. That soil must influence the agriculture of a country appears at first sight very obvious; though if climate be favorable, time and art will render the soil fit for any species of culture. Naturally, however, soil has a powerful influence; and the period under ordinary management will be considerable, before strong deep clays on a flat surface, can be rendered equally fit for the turnip or potatoe, with friable loams, or more gravelly or sandy soils.

1238. The influence of moisture on the state of lands, is naturally very considerable, and though draining and irrigation can effectually remove excess or supply deficiency, yet fen lands and chalk hills, such as we find in Huntingdonshire, Surrey, and other Counties, will ever have a peculiar character of agriculture; the marsh perennial hay grasses will be the characteristic plants of the former, and saintfoin of the latter.

1239. As the general result of this outline of the influence of physical circumstances on agriculture, we may form a classification of that of any particular country to whichever of the four universal divisions (1228. to 1231.) it belongs. We submit the following: 1240. The agriculture of water-fed lands, including fens, marshes, and marsh meadows.

1241. The agriculture of sun-burnt lands, including chalk, gravel, and sandy hills, where vegetation is annually more or less burned up during two or more of the summer months.

1242. The agriculture of mountains, in which the farmery is placed on the farm, as distinguished from those cases in which the mountain lands or a part of them are appended to lands on the plain.

1243. Common agriculture, or that of the plains, valleys, and hills of a country in which all the crops and all the animals suitable to the climate may be profitably cultivated and reared.

CHAP. III.

Agriculture as affected by Civil, Political, and Religious Circumstances.

1244. The influence of the state of society and government on agriculture, must obviously be very considerable, as well as climate and situation; for it will signify little what a country is capable of producing, if the inhabitants are too barbarous to desire, too ignorant to know, or too much oppressed to attain these products. Some of the finest lands in the world, capable of producing wheat, maize, rice, and the grape, are inhabited by savages, who live on game, wild fruits, or native roots; or by half civilized tribes who cultivate maize, and yams, or some other local root. Even in Ireland, where the soil is better than in Britain, and with very moderate culture will produce excellent wheat and other corns, with beef, mutton, and wool, the greater part of the inhabitants from ignorance, oppression, and in part as we have seen (840.) religious

slavery, content themselves with roots and rags, the latter often the cast off refuse of other countries (830).

1245. The state of civilization and refinement of a people not only influences agriculture by the nature of the products such a state requires, but also by the means it affords of producing these products. By the superiority of the means of information on every subject; by the existing state of knowledge, for example, in mechanics, chemistry, and physiology, by which the implements and machines are improved, the operations of soils and manures regulated, the influence of water, the atmosphere, and the functions of plants and animals understood. The difference in the means taken to effect the same end in a poor but yet ingenious country, and in one rich and enlightened, is exemplified in China and India, compared with Britain; and between a comparatively poor and intelligent country, and a rich ignorant country, in comparing Scotland and England, at least as far as agriculture is concerned. Wealth and ignorance, as contrasted with poverty and ingenuity, may also be exemplified in comparing the farmer of Hindustan with the English farmer. The latter to stir the soil, employs an unwieldly implement drawn by several oxen or horses; the former uses a small light implement drawn by one ox or buffalo, but effects his object by repeating the operation many times. The Englishman effects it at once, often in spite of the worst means, by main force. The processes of Chinese manufacture are exceedingly curious and ingenious, and form a remarkable contrast to the rapid and scientific processes of Britain. There are many curious practices in France and Germany, the result of poverty and ingenuity. In Brittany the whin is used as horse provender: to bruise the spines one man operates on a simple but ingenious machine (fig. 216.), and effects his purpose completely. Here the same thing is done by a couple of iron rollers turned by a horse or by water. But the farmer of Brittany, who would purchase a pair of whin bruisingrollers, must first sell the greater part of his stock and crop.

1246. The political state of a country will powerfully affect its agriculture. Where security, the greatest object of government, is procured at too high a rate, the taxes will depress the cultivator, and not only consume his profits, but infringe on his capital; where security, either relatively to external circumstances, or internal laws, is incomplete, there the farmer who has capital will be unwilling to risk it; few who have capital will engage in that profession; and if any finds it profitable, the fear

216

of exposing himself to exactions from government or his landlord, will prevent him from making a proper use of his profits either in the way of employment or consumption. Many instances of this state of things are to be found in the foregoing history. Wherever the metayer system, or short leases prevail, whatever may be the nature or practice of the government, these remarks will apply. Security and liberty at a moderate price are essential to the prosperity of agriculture, even more so than to manufactures

or commerce.

1247. Religion may be thought to have very little influence on agriculture: but in a Catholic or Mahommedan country where the religion enjoins a frequent abstinence from animal food, and long periodical fasts from even the produce of the cow, surely the rearing and feeding of stock for the shambles or the dairy cannot prosper to the same extent as in a country less enslaved by prejudice, or whose religious opinions do not interfere with their cookery. The number of holidays is also a great grievance.

1248. The natural character of a people may even have some influence on their agriculture, independently of all the other circumstances mentioned. The essential character of a people is formed by the climate and country in which they live, and their factitious or accidental character by their government and religion for the time being. The latter may alter, but the original or native character remains. Thus the French appear to be the same gay people which they were in the time of Julius Cæsar; and as far as history enables us to judge, the Greeks and Romans have only lost their accidental character. The love of society and social amusements inherent in every class of Frenchmen, will probably long prevent their agriculturists from isolating their farmeries, as in the vale of Arno and the Alpine regions of Europe, and indeed of every mountainous country. French and Italian farmers, in general, live together in villages, sometimes five or six miles distant from their farms: early in the morning the household set out with the cattle and

implements, and their food for the day; they work till near mid-day, and then refresh themselves, and repose under a tree, or in winter under a temporary shed; at night they return, meet their neighbours, make a protracted supper, and amuse themselves in fiddling and dancing, till they have exhausted their superfluous spirits.

1249. The agriculture of the world in regard to the state of society may perhaps admit of the following divisions. —

1250. The agriculture of science, or modern farming, in which the cultivator is secure in his property or possession, both relatively to the government and landlord under which he lives, as generally in Britain and North America.

1251. The agriculture of habit, or feudal culture, in which the cultivator is a metayer, or a tenant at will, or on a short lease, or has covenanted to pursue a certain fixed system of culture.

1252. Barbarian agriculture, or that of a semi-barbarous people who cultivate at random, and on land to which they have no defined right of possession, roots or grain without regard to rotation, order, or permanent advantage.

1253. The economy of savages, such as hunting, fishing, gathering fruits, or digging up roots.

CHAP. IV.

Of the Agriculture of Britain.

1254. To which of these geographical, physical, and social divisions of agriculture that of the British isles may be referred, is the next object to be determined, and we submit the following as its classification.

1255. Geographically it is the agriculture of draining and manures.

1256. Physically, those of water-fed and sun-burnt lands, mountains, and variable plains.

1257. Socially considered, it is the agriculture of science.

1258. The following PARTS of this work, therefore, are to be considered as treating of a kind of agriculture so characterized; that is, of the agriculture of our own country. Whoever has paid a due attention to what has preceded, can scarcely fail to have formed an idea of the agriculture of every other part of the world, sufficient to enable him to determine that very little in our art is to be learned any where else than among ourselves.

PART II.

AGRICULTURE CONSIDERED AS A SCIENCE.

1259. All knowledge is founded on experience; in the infancy of any art, experience is confined and knowledge limited to a few particulars; but as arts are improved and extended a great number of facts become known, and the generalization of these, or the arrangement of them according to some leading principle, constitutes the theory, science, or law of an art.

1260. Agriculture, in common with other arts, may be practised without any knowledge of its theory; that is, established practices may be imitated; but in this case it must ever remain stationary. The mere routine practitioner cannot advance beyond the limits of his own particular experience, and can neither derive instruction from such accidents as are favorable to his object, nor guard against the re-occurence of such as are unfavorable. He can have no resource for unforeseen events but ordinary expedients; while the man of science resorts to general principles, refers events to their true causes, and adapts his measures to meet every case.

1261. The object of the art of agriculture is to increase the quantity and improve the quality of such vegetable and animal productions of the earth as are used by civilized man; and the object of the agriculturist is to do this with the least expenditure of means; or, in other words, with profit. The result of the experience of mankind as to other ob. jects may be conveyed to an enquiring mind in two different ways: he may be instructed in the practical operations of the art, and their theory, or the reasons on which they are founded, laid down and explained to him as he goes along; or he may be first instructed ja general principles, and then in the practices which flow from them. The former

mode is the natural or actual mode in which every art is acquired (in so far as acquirement is made) by such as have no recourse to books, and may be compared to the natural mode of acquiring a language without the study of its grammar. The latter mode is by much the most correct and effectual, and is calculated to enable an instructed agricul turist to proceed with the same kind of confidence and satisfaction in his practice that a grammarian does in the use of language.

1262. In adopting what we consider as the preferable mode of agricultural instruction, we shall, as its grammar or science, endeavour to convey a general idea of the nature of vegetables, of animals, of minerals, mixed bodies, and the atmosphere, as connected with agriculture; of agricultural implements and other mechanical agents; and of agricultural operations and processes.

1263. The study of the science of agriculture may be considered as implying a regular education in the student, who ought to be well acquainted with arithmetic and mensuration, have acquired the art of sketching objects, whether animal, vegetable, or general scenery, of taking off and laying down geometrical plans; but especially he ought to have studied chemistry, hydraulics, and something of carpentry, smithery, and the other building arts and as Professor Von Thaer observes, he ought to have some knowledge of all those manufactures to which his art furnishes the raw materials.

BOOK I.

OF THE STUDY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM WITH A VIEW TO AGRICULTURE.

1264. The various objects with which we are surrounded are either organized, having several constituent parts which united form a whole capable of increase by nourishment; or they are inorganized, and only increased by additions to their external parts. To the first division belong the animal and vegetable kingdom, and their study is founded chiefly on observation; to the second belongs the mineral kingdom, the study of which in masses, or geology and mineralogy, is also founded chiefly on observation; and in regard to composition and elements, on experiment or chemistry.

1265. Vegetables are distinguished from animals as not being endowed with sentiment. or a consciousness of existence. Their study has employed the attention of mankind from a very early period; and has been carried to a high degree of perfection within the last century; and more especially by the exertions of Linnæus, Jussieu, Mirbel, and some other French philosophers. This study comprehends systematic botany, vegetable anatomy, vegetable chemistry, physiology, pathology, the distribution of vegetables, and vegetable culture. The study of these branches is of the utmost importance to the agriculturist, especially that of vegetable physiology; and though the limits of this work do not permit us to enter into the subject at great length; yet we shall direct his attention to the leading points, and refer him to the best books.

CHAP. I.

Of the Study of Systematic Botany.

1266. Glossology, or the study of the names of the parts of plants, is the first step in this department.

1267. All the arts and sciences require to express with brevity and perspicuity a crowd of ideas unused in common language, and unknown to the greater part of men. Whence that multitude of terms, or technical turns, given to ordinary words which the public turn often into ridicule, because they do not feel the use of them, but which all those are obliged to make use of, who apply themselves to any study whatever. Botany having to describe an immense number of beings, and each of these beings having a great variety of organs, requires a great variety of terms. Nearly all botanists are agreed as to these terms, and in order that they may be universally understood and remain unchanged in meaning, they are taken from a dead or fixed language.

1268. A plant in flower surveyed externally, may be perceived to be composed of a variety of obvious parts, such as the root, the stem, the branch, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, and perhaps the seed; and other parts less obvious, as buds, prickles, tendrils, hairs, glands, &c. These, with their modifications, and all the relative circumstances which enter into the botanical description of a plant, constitute the subject of glossology, or the study of the language of botany. The reader may consult Smith's Introduction to Botany, or almost any recent work on the elements of botanical science.

1269. Phytography, or the naming and describing of plants, is the next part of the subject to be considered. Before botany became a regular science, plants were named as individual beings, without regard to any relation which they had to one another. But from the great number of names to be retained on the memory, and the obvious affinities existing among certain individuals or natural families, some method was soon found necessary, and it was then deemed requisite to give such composite names as might recal to mind something of the individuals to which they were applied. Thus we have Anagalis flore cæruleo. Mespilus aculeata pyrifolia, &c. In the end, however, the length of these phrases became inconvenient, and Linnæus,

struck with this inconvenience, proposed that the names of plants should henceforth consist of two words only, the one the generic or family name, and the other the specific or individual name.

1770. The names of classes and orders were originally primitive, or without meaning, as the Grasses of Tragus, Poppies of Bauhin, &c.; and afterwards so compounded as to be long and complex, as the Pallopiostemonopetala, Eleutheromacrastemones, &c. of Wachendorf. Linnæus decided, that the names of classes and orders should consist of a single word, and that word not simple or primitive, but expressive of a certain character or characters, found in all the plants which compose it.

1971. In applying names to plants, three rules are laid down by botanists: 1st. That the languages chosen should be fixed and universal, as the Greek and Latin. 2d. That these languages should be used according to the general laws of grammar, and compound words always composed from the same language, and not of entire words, &c. 3d. That the first who discovers a being, and enregisters it in the catalogue of nature, has the right of giving it a name; and that that name ought to be received and admitted by naturalists, unless it belong to a being already existing, or transgress the rules of nomenclature. Every one that discovers a new plant may not be able to enregister it according to these laws, and in that case has no right to give it his name; but the botanist who enregisters it, and who is in truth the discoverer, may give it the name of the finder, if he chooses,

1 The whole vegetable kingdom is divided into classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties. A class is distinguished by some character which is common to many plants; an order is distinguished by having some character limited to a few plants belonging to a class; a still more limited coincidence constitutes a genus; and each individual of a genus, which continues unchanged when raised from seed, is called a species. A variety is formed by an accidental deviation from the specific character, and easily returns by seed to the particular species from which it arose.

1773. For the purposes of recording and communicating botanical knowledge, plants are described, and this is done either by the use of language alone, or by language and figures, models or dried plants, conjoined. The description of plants may be either abridged or complete. The shortest mode of abridgment is that employed in botanical catalogues, as in those of Donn or of Sweet. The most exact descriptions are deficient without figures or an herbarium. Hence the advantage of being able to see plants at pleasure, by forming dried collections of them. The greater part of plants dry with facility between the leaves of books, or other paper, the smoother the better. If there be plenty of paper, they often dry best without shifting, but if the specimens are crowded, they must be taken out frequently, and the paper dried before they are replaced.

14 The language of botany may be acquired by two methods, analogous to those by which common Languages are acquired. The first is the natural method, which begins with the great and obvious classes of vegetables, and distinguishes trees, grasses, &c. ; next individuals among these, and afterwards their parts or organs. This knowledge is acquired insensibly, as we acquire our native tongue. The second is the artificial method, and begins with the parts of plants, as the leaves, roots, &c. ascending to nomenclature and classification, and is acquired by particular study, aided by books or instructors, as one acquires a dead or foreign language. This method is the fittest for such as wish to attain a thorough knowledge of plants, so as to be able to describe them; the other mode is easier, and the best suited for cultivators, whose object does not go beyond that of understanding their descriptions, and studying their physiology, history, and application. A very good method for a person at a distance from botanists, is to form a collection of dried specimens of all the plants which he wishes to know the names of, and to send them to the curator of the nearest botanic garden, requesting him to write the name below each specimen, and refer to some work easily procured, such as Withering or Gray's Arrangement of British Plants, in which is given its description, uses, history, &c. Smith's Introduction, and the Elements of Decandolle and Sprengel, may be referred to as the best works on phytography and nomenclature.

1275. Taxonomy, or the classification of plants, is the last part of the study of technological botany. It is very evident, that, without some arrangement, the mind of man would be unequal to the task of acquiring even an imperfect knowledge of the various objects of nature. Accordingly, in every science, attempts have been made to classify the different objects that it embraces, and these attempts have been founded on various principles. Some have adopted artificial characters; others have endeavoured to detect the natural relations of the beings to be arranged, and thus to ascertain a connection by which the whole may be associated. In the progress of zoology and physiology, the fundamental organs on which to found a systematic arrangement have been finally agreed on. In both, those which are essential, and which discover the greatest variety, form the basis of classification. Animals are found to differ most from each other in the organs of nutrition, and plants in the organs of reproduction.

16. Two kinds of methods of arranging vegetables have been distinguished by botanists, the natural and the artificial. A natural method is that, which, in its distribution, retains all the natural classes; that is, such into which no plants enter that are not connected by numerous relations, or that can be dis joined without doing a manifest violence to nature. An artificial method is that whose classes are not natural, because they collect together several genera of plants which are not connected by numerous relations, although they agree in the characteristic mark or marks, assigned to that particular class or asserablage to which they belong. An artificial method is easier than the natural, as in the latter it is nature, in the former the writer, who prescribes to plants the rules and order to be observed in their distribution. Hence, likewise, as nature is ever uniform, there can be only one natural method; whereas artificial methods may be multiplied almost ad infinitum, according to the several different relations

under which bodies are viewed.

177. The object of the natural method is to promote our knowledge of the vegetable kingdom by generalizing facts and ideas; the object of the artificial method is to facilitate the knowledge of plants as individual objects. The merits of the former method consist in the perfection with which plants are grouped together in natural families or orders, and these families grouped among themselves; the merits of the latter consist in the perfection with which they are arranged according to certain marks by which the names may be discovered. Plants arranged according to the natural method may be compared to words arranged according to their roots or derivations; arranged according to an artificial method they may be compared to words in a dictionary. The success attending attempts at botanical arrangement, both naturally and artificially, has been singularly striking. Linnaeus has given the most beautiful artifi rial system that has ever been bestowed by genius on mankind; and Jussieu has, with unrivalled ability, exhibited the natural affinities of the vegetable kingdom. For the study of this department we refer to the works of Smith, Decandolle, and Gray, already mentioned.

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