Excerpt from Lessons in Modern Farming: Or, Agriculture for Schools; Containing Scientific Exercises for Recitation; And Elegant Extracts From Rural Literature, for Academic or Family Reading
The fact has been long apparent, that there has been a constant decline in most agricultural products; that in numerous instances, farms have become so worn out and unproductive, as not to yield an equivalent for the labor of cultivation. The consequence was a natural one, the tenants being reduced to great destitution, the farms were abandoned, and new lands taken up for culture. A few such cases, land in this country being abundant, did not necessarily create general alarm; but when whole districts of country were affected in the same way, when it was seen that thousands of farms were thus becoming worthless - that the calamity, if it might be so called, was every year making fearful progress westward, threatening in the end the insufficiency of the earth to support its inhabitants - verily, a gloomy spectacle was presented to the imagination.
To the philosopher and the political economist, this was indeed matter of deep alarm, and requiring profound investigation. Their investigations were attended with satisfactory results. Science, as in other departments of knowledge, came to our relief, demonstrating the self-sustaining energy of the soil to all the purposes for which it was designed, provided we keep it under the dominion of those physical laws which govern material nature. The principle suggested was a simple one, easy of comprehension; the remedial process was natural, and attended with no serious obstacles. It was simply to restore to the earth such fertilizing agents as are taken from it in each successive crop. Indeed, with a small expense and with materials found in unlimited profusion, this original capacity may be greatly augmented. To do this is the aim of scientific man who are turning their attention to agriculture. Hence, the praiseworthy efforts that have latterly been made to dispel the gloom that had been gathering around the husbandman - to scatter light in his path - to alleviate his labors - to augment his profits - and to make his occupation appear to him, what it is designed to be, and what it may be, among the most honorable and useful among men.
Among the instrumentalities for achieving these laudable objects, has been the more extensive production of books on agriculture, the circulation of periodical literature, and the delivery of scientific lectures on the subject; and, especially, the establishment of agricultural schools, where the sons of farmers and all others may receive an agricultural education analagous to the education provided for young men designed for the various other professions in useful labor. This is the great enterprise of scientific agriculturists of the present day. The scheme is a magnificent one. It embraces within its telescopic range the welfare of the whole human family.
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