be disregarded, the repeated demands upon the same soil to
produce the same crop will exhaust it of the elements on which that
particular crop will best thrive. If the chemical ingredients and
affinities of the soil are not understood, an attempt may be made to
reenforce it by substances with which it is already surcharged, instead
of renovating it with those of which it has been exhausted by previous
growths. But for these arrangements and adaptations knowledge is the
grand desideratum, and the addition of a new fact to a farmer's mind
will often increase the amount of his harvests more than the addition of
acres to his estate.

Why is it that, if we except Egypt, all the remaining territory of
Africa, containing nearly ten millions of square miles, with a soil most
of which is incomparably more fertile by nature, produces less for the
sustenance of man and beast than England, whose territory is only fifty
thousand square miles? In the latter country, knowledge has been a
substitute for a genial climate and an exuberant soil; while in the
former, it is hardly a figurative expression to say that all the
maternal kindness of nature, powerful and benignant as she is, has been
repulsed by the ignorance of her children. Doubtless industry as well as
knowledge is indispensable to productiveness; but knowledge must precede
industry, or the latter will work to so little effect as to become
discouraged, and to relapse into the slothfulness of savage life. This
is illustrated by the condition of the inhabitants of Lower California,
as described by an intelligent friend of the author, who left this
country a year ago. He says this is a "most beautiful country, with the
finest climate in the world. But its inhabitants, who are principally
Spaniards and Indians, are in a state of semi-barbarism, and
consequently its resources are, to a certain extent, undeveloped. The
land, which is generally level and of the richest quality, is divided
into ranchos or plantations, the largest of which are twenty miles
square, and feed twenty or thirty thousand head of wild cattle, with
horses and mules in proportion. But these are all. The arts are in the
lowest state imaginable. Their houses are mere pens, without pen floors;
their plows are pointed logs; their yokes are straight sticks, which
they tie to the horns of their oxen; and every implement of industry
shows an equal want of ingenuity and enterprise. They are too indolent
to raise much