Modern Agriculture [pp. 660-667]

MODERN AGRICULTURE.
ART. V.-MODERN AGRICULTUPtE.*
"In nova fert animus mutatus dicere formas corpora."-Ovid.
Now, Mr. Reader, we are going to try to serve you up a dish
of philosophy, and don't complain of us for surfeiting you with
such indigestible intellectual food; for in this instance, at least,
we prepare the repast set before you at the " special instance
and request" of the Editor. When he furnishes tough viands,
we have not the culinary skill to elaborate for you tender
dishes.
The work before us deals only with philosophy in its most
recondite, subtle, and abstruse forms. Prejudiced as we are
against all philosophy, and especially against agricultural philosophy, we have seldom been so pleased, fascinated and absorbed, as while reading this volume. The author cautiously,
ingeniously, and gradually carries us along with him, convincing us step by step, that every fact, every proposition, every
deduction, and every theory, which he states or propounds, is
true. We, however skeptical, before laying down the book,
became almost a convert to philosophical farming and agricultural chemistry. We feel that it is true-that it is all true!
Yet a lingering doubt remains, and as deliberation cools the
mind, we begin to doubt (though it be all truth) whether it be
all of the truth-whether "there be not more things in
heaven and earth than he e'er dreamed of in his philosophy"whether it be not defective (like all systems of moral or medical philosophy) in analyzing, detecting, exposing, and explaining but a part, instead of the whole of the facts on which a
theory should be erected? If so-if there be in the soil, in
the climate, in the season, in the plants, in the atmosphere,
and in the manures, thousands of minute, subtile, delicate
substances, elements, causes, or agencies, which no analysis can detect, and therefore no philosophy can enumerate,
weigh, balance, and generalize, is not a system founded
on such a partial knowledge of facts more calculated to
mislead than to guide aright? In the hands of men of
much genius and of little experience, such books always do
more harm than good. Peas and philosophy may get along
tolerably together with the cautious, experienced farmer, who
cultivates the peas a great deal and pays little attention to the
* Letters on Modern Agriculture. By BARON VON LEIBIG. New-York, John
Wiley, 1859.
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