try, botany, and agriculture; and exercises in orthography, elocution, . and English composition during the year.

Sophomore year-First term: German, agriculture, commercial arithmetic, and book-keeping. Second term: German, trigonometry, analyti cal chemistry, with laboratory practice. Third term: Mensuration, surveying, analytical chemistry, zoology, drawing. Lectures upon comparative anatomy, diseases of domestic animals, organic chemistry, dairy farming, and market gardening; and exercises in English composition and declamation, during the year.

Junior year.-First term: Physics, French or German, agricultural chemistry, with practice in the laboratory and the field, drawing. Second term: Physics, rhetoric, horticulture, drawing. Third term: Astronomy, systematic botany, French or German. Lectures upon physics, mineralogy, the cultivation of the vine, of fruit and forest trees, and upon useful and injurious insects, and exercises in English composition and debate, during the year.

Senior year. First term: Intellectual philosophy, history, physical geography. Second term: Moral philosophy, political geography, the civil polity of Massachusetts and the United States. Third term: Geology, engineering, political economy. Lectures upon stock farming, architecture, landscape gardening, rural law, geology, and English literature, and exercises in original declamation and debate, during the year.

Exercises in gymnastics, military tactics, and the various operations of the farm and garden, through the course.

The college was opened for students October 2, 1867, and has been nearly full ever since. The average age of its members is about eighteen years, and the majority are farmers. Nearly all who have entered have been desirous of remaining through the entire course, and all have performed their various duties with cheerful readiness. The manual labor has been so far performed without any manifestations of dissatisfaction, and has been regarded as an important part of the education.

The faculty consists of a president, who is also professor of botany and horticulture; a professor of agriculture; a professor of military science; a professor of mathematics and physics; a professor of chemistry; a professor of modern languages; and such instructors and lecturers as are required to teach in the best manner the various subjects of the regular

course.

The college is generally conceded to have been thus far remarkably successful, and it is confidently expected that the legislature of the State and the wealthy friends of progressive agriculture will furnish funds suf ficient to place it in the foremost rank of the educational institutions of Massachusetts.

RECENT AGRICULTURAL BOOKS.

THE ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE: A Book for Young Farmers. By Geo. E. Waring, jr. 12mo. 254 pages. New York: The Tribune Association.

This book teaches young farmers the first principles of their profession, and shows them in plain language what science has discovered and told in its necessarily technical terms, and what experience has proved to be of practical value. The facts promulgated lie at the groundwork of farming, and are essential to the business education of every farmer. Its teachings are based on the positive facts of chemistry and the most enlightened practice of modern agriculture. The constitution of plants, the formation and character of soils, the character and varieties of manures, the mechanical character of soils, with reference to draining, sub-soil plowing, rolling, mulching, &c., are discussed with comparative freedom from technical terms.

A scientific description of chemical and mechanical manures is followed by suggestions on their relative value, their manufacture, preservation and application; on the means of restoring deficiencies of soils; on absorbents, various organic and mineral manures, atmospheric fertilizers, leaching, &c. It is mentioned as a "singular fact concerning leaching, that water is able to carry no part of the organic constituents of vegetables to any considerable distance below the surface in a fertile soil. They would probably be carried to an unlimited depth in pure sand, as it contains nothing which is capable of arresting them; but in most soils the clay and carbon retain all of the ammonia and nearly all of the matters which go to form the ashes of plants, very near the surface of the soil. If such were not the case, the fertility of the earth must soon be destroyed, as all of those elements which the soil must supply to growing plants would be carried down out of the reach of roots, and leave the world a barren waste, its surface having lost its elements of fertility, while the downward filtration would render the water of wells and springs unfit for use. Now, however, they are all retained near the surface of the soil, and the water issues from springs comparatively pure." On the question of spreading manure on land for any length of time before being plowed under, Mr. Waring says: "Practice has gained a triumph over the old theory. There is no doubt that manure so spread is subject to some waste; but what is not wasted is so much better incorporated with the soil by the water of rains, which distributes its soluble parts evenly among all of its particles, that the effect produced is better than if the raw manure had been immediately plowed under, necessarily somewhat irregularly and in spots. In this latter case there would be no loss of material; but some parts of the soil would receive more than was necessary, while others would be deprived of any material benefit, and the land would be less fertile than if every root were sure to find, in every part of the soil, its due proportion of the food. Ammonia is formed only during decomposition; and especially during cold weather there is very little decomposition going on in manure which is thinly spread upon the surface of the land; hence the loss from this cause is not great.

"In the case of very heavy manuring, especially with undecomposed

manure on clay land, a great benefit arises from the fermentation of the dung in the soil, a chemical action producing a mechanical effect.

"Night soil, or human excrement, is the best manure within reach of the farmer. The food of man is usually much richer than that of any other animal, is of a more varied character, and richer in nitrogen, the phosphates, and other inorganic constituents; consequently his manure is made valuable by containing large quantities of these matters. It has been used for ages in China and Japan, and is undoubtedly the secret of their success in supporting an immense population through almost countless ages, without impoverishing the soil.

"Some have supposed that manuring with night soil would give disagreeable properties to plants; this is not the case; their quality is inva riably improved. The color and odor of the rose are made richer and more delicate by the use of the most offensive night soil as manure.

"It is evident that this is the case from the fact that plants have it for their direct object to make over and put together the refuse organic matter, and the gases and the minerals found in nature, for the use of animals. If there were no natural means of rendering the excrement of animals available to plants, the earth must soon be shorn of its fertility, as the elements of growth, when once consumed, would be essentially destroyed, and no soil could survive the exhaustion. There is no reason why the manure of man should be rejected by vegetation more than that of any other animal, and indeed it is not; ample experience has proved that there is no better manure in existence. Night soil may be so kept that there will be no loss of its valuable gases, and no offensive odor arise from it, when it can be removed and applied to crops without unpleasantness; and that is, by simply mixing with it a little charcoal dust, prepared muck, dry earth, or any other good absorbent, thus making what is called poudrette."-(See article on earth closets, &c.) In illustrating the benefits of sub-soil plowing, the author remarks: "If plants will grow better on a soil six inches deep than on one of three inches, there is no reason why they should not be benefited in proportion by disturbing the soil to the whole depth to which roots will travel, even to a depth of two feet. The minute rootlets of corn and most other plants will, if allowed by cultivation, occupy the soil to a greater depth than this, having a fiber in nearly every cubic inch of the soil for the whole distance. There are very few cultivated plants whose roots would not travel to a depth of thirty inches or more. Even the onion sends its roots to the depth of eighteen inches when the soil is well cultivated.

"The object of loosening the soil is to admit roots to a sufficient depth to hold the plant in its position; to obtain the nutriment necessary to its growth; to receive moisture from the lower portion of the soil; and, if it be a bulb, tuber, or tap, to assume the form requisite for its largest development. It must be evident, also, that roots penetrating the soil to a depth of two feet, anchor the plant with greater stability than those which are spread more thinly near the surface."

The chapters on under-draining, plowing, mulching, and weeding, are valuable, but in a compact style scarcely admitting abridgment.

HOW CROPS GROW: A Treatise on the Chemical Composition, Structure, and Life of the Plant, for all students of Agriculture, with numerous Illustrations and Tables of Analyses. By Samuel W. Jolinson, A. M., professor of analytical and agricultural chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College, &c. 12ino. 394 pages. New York: Orange Judd & Co. 1868.

Professor Johnson has delivered an annual course of lectures to the scientific school of Yale College for several years, and this work is the

result of studies undertaken in preparing these lectures. It considers plants from three distinct, yet closely related, stand-points, viz: their chemical composition, their structure, and the offices of their organs, and the conditions of their life and growth-the author keeping his eye steadily fixed upon the practical aspects of the subject. "It must not be forgotten," he says, "that a valuable principle is often arrived at from the study of facts, which, considered singly, have no visible connection with a practical result. Statements are made which may appear far more curious than useful, and that have at present a simply speculative interest, no mode being apparent by which the farmer can increase his crops or diminish his labors by help of his acquaintance with them. Such facts are not, however, for this reason to be ignored. It is just such curious and seemingly useless facts that are often the seeds of vast advances in industry and the arts."

In the introduction, the objections sometimes made to theoretical agriculture are met: "In all cases, thought goes before work, and the intelligent workman always has a theory upon which his practice is planned. No farm was ever conducted without physiology, chemistry, and phys ics, any more than an aqueduct or a railway was built without mathematics and mechanics. Every successful farmer is, to some extent, a scientific man. Let him throw away the knowledge of facts and the knowledge of principles which constitute his science, and he has lost the elements of success. Other qualifications being equal, the more advanced and complete the theory of which the farmer is the master, the more successful must be his farming. The more he knows, the more he can do. The more deeply, comprehensively, and clearly he can think, the more economically and advantageously can he work.

"There is no opposition or conflict between science and art, between theory and practice. If they appear to jar, it is because we have something false or incomplete in what we call our science or our art; or else we do not perceive correctly, but are misled by the narrowness and aberrations of our vision. It is often said of a machine, that it was good in theory but failed in practice. This is as untrue as untrue can be. If a machine has failed in practice it is because it was imperfect in theory. It should be said of such a failure, 'the machine was good, judged by the best theory known to its inventor, but its incapacity to work demonstrates that the theory had a flaw.'

*

*

"The progress of agriculture is the joint work of theory and practice. In many departments great advances have been made during the last hundred years; especially is this true in all that relates to implements and machines, and to the improvement of domestic animals. It is, however, in just these departments that an improved theory has had sway. More recent is the development of agriculture in its chemical and physiological aspects. In these directions, the present century, or, we might almost say, the last thirty years, has seen more accomplished than all previous time. It is, in fact, during the last thirty years that agricultural chemistry has come to rest on sure foundations. Our knowledge of the structure and physiology of plants is of like recent development. What immense practical benefit the farmer has gathered from this advance of science! The dense population of Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, and Saxony can attest the fact. Chemistry has ascer tained what vegetation absolutely demands for its growth, and points out a multitude of sources whence the requisite materials for crops can be derived. To be sure, Cato and Columella knew that ashes, bones, bird-dung, and green mauuring, as well as drainage and aëration of the soil, were good for the crops; but that carbonic acid, potash, phosphate

of lime, and compounds of nitrogen are the chief pabulum of vegetation, they did not know. They did not know that the atmosphere dissolves the rocks and converts inert stone into nutritive soil. These grand principles, understood in many of their details, are an inestimable boon to agriculture, and intelligent farmers have not been slow to apply them in practice. The vast trade in phosphatic and in Peruvian guano, and in nitrate of soda; the great manufactures of oil of vitriol, of super phosphate of lime, of fish fertilizers; and the mining of fossil bones and of potash salts, are largely or entirely industries based upon and controlled by chemistry in the service of agriculture."

In the chapter on the vegetative organs of plants, it is remarked that the most satisfactory observations we possess on the quantity and length of roots of several important crops growing in the field, have been made by Schubart, who separated them from the soil by the following expedient: "An excavation was made in a field to the depth of six feet, and a stream of water directed against the vertical wall of soil until it was washed away, so that the roots of the plants growing in it were laid bare. The roots thus exposed in a field of rye, in one of beans, and in a bed of garden peas, presented the appearance of a mat or felt of white fibers to a depth of about four feet from the surface. The roots of winter wheat he observed as deep as seven feet, in a light subsoil, fortyseven days after sowing. The depth of the roots of winter wheat, winter rye, and winter colza, as well as of clover, was from three to four feet. The roots of clover one year old were three and a half feet long; those of two-year-old clover but four inches longer.

"Some plants have roots equally able to exist and perform their functions, whether in the soil or submerged in water. Many forms of vegetation found in our swamps and marshes are of this kind. Of agricul tural plants, rice is an example in point. Rice will grow in a soil of ordinary character, in respect of moisture, as the upland cotton soils, or even the pine barrens of the Carolinas. It flourishes admirably in the tide swamps of the coast, where the land is laid under water for weeks at a time during its growth, and it succeeds equally well in fields which are flowed from the time of planting to that of harvesting."

"The idea of species as distinct from variety, which has been held by most scientific authorities hitherto, is based primarily on the faculty of continued reproduction. The horse is a species comprising many varie ties. Any two of these animals, by sexual union, may propagate the species. The same is true of the ass. The horse and the ass, by sexual union, produce a hybrid-the mule-but the sexual union of mules is without result. They cannot continue the mule as a distinct kind of animal-as a species. Among animals a species therefore comprises all those individuals which are related by common origin or fraternity, and which are capable of sexual fertility. This conception involves original and permanent differences between different species. Species, therefore, cannot change any of their essential characters, those characters which are hence termed specific.

"Individuals of the same species differ.. In fact, no two individuals are quite alike. Circumstances of temperature, food, and habits of life increase these differences, and varieties originate when such differences assume a comparative permanence and fixity. But as external conditions cause variation away from any particular representative of a species, so they may cause variation back again to the original; and although variation may take a seemingly wide range, its bounds are fixed and do not touch specific characters.

"The causes that produce varieties are numerous, but in many cases