Then all sorts and varieties of animals were created or made out of the vegetable kingdom. Lastly, man was made out of the vegetables and animals which had been made before. This is, in substance, the account of creation given by Moses. And the most important lessons which the farmer can learn may be taught him by a close investigation of the preparations made as absolutely necessary to the creation and reproduction of every class of living beings. First the rocks had to be reduced to dust for the production and support of plants and trees. The powdering of rocks was accomplished by several preparations. The hills and mountains consisted of sheets or layers of rocks. (There was at first no soil or dirt.) The pushing upward of the mountains out of the waters bent the layers of rocks across the backbone of ridges, and cracked them in countless places from top to bottom. The heat of the sun dried and cracked the rocks on the surface, and the heat of the sun and the atmosphere evaporated the water of the seas and let it down as rain, to run into all the cracks and seams, so that whenever the air was cold enough the water in the cracks became ice, which expanded in freezing and shivered the rocks to powder or dust. This dust was used to create and reproduced the whole vegetable kingdom then and ever afterwards. The same preparations were necessary to precede the creation of animals. And the vegetable kingdom itself was an all-important preparation; it was obliged to precede animals, because all animals are made directly out of vegetables. Hence the face of the earth was made hilly, and the hills were made with numerous vents to drain the rain-water downward and form springs for animals to drink, while the perfect drainage prepared the soil to produce every sort of vegetable for the support of all animals. Then, according to the Divine economy, without this system of drainage no vegetable could be produced and supported; and without vegetables, no animals could be produced and supported; and without vegetables and inferior animals, man could not be produced and supported. This important lesson of Divine geology ought to be well studied by every farmer. He cannot expect to produce farm crops, fruits and grasses unless he observes the Divine plan. He must keep his lands in a condition to drain well, or then he need not expect to prosper.

Again, we learn from geology that the sheets of rocks which compose the hills are not all made up of exactly the same simple substances; and we learn that the most soluble components of the rocks are fertilizers, such as potash, soda, phosphorus, lime, sulphur, chlorine, etc.; and that, unless the farm is kept in a condition to absorb,

retain and appropriate them as fast as dissolved, they will mostly be dissolved out and washed away, and the farm will be made poor and unproductive. But if the farmer will look at nature's contrivance to prevent the waste of the more soluble components of the rocks, he will find that all the contrivances to keep the face of the earth unlevel, and to keep open numerous vents to let rain-water down freely through the soil and the rocks, are nature's chief arrangements to preserve the fertility of the soil. If rain-water will sink and run away under ground as fast as it falls, it will not delay to wet the soil excessively so as to bake it, nor to dissolve much of the fertilizers, and therefore hasty rains will do but little damage. From this the farmer learns that he ought to co-operate with nature in keeping his lands porous, to preserve the manures on the surface, and to prevent the washing of his lands into gulleys, and the drying up of his springs; because, if the soil shall become water-tight, and cause the rain to run away on the surface, all springs, creeks and riyers will dry up; then no vapor will rise from streams, the soil and vegetables, to come down as dew and rain. The section will become thirsty and barren. It is probable that from this cause Palestine, once able to support five millions of inhabitants, is now so barren that half a million of people consume all that the country can produce.

Again, if the farmer understands the components of the rocks, he may subsoil and drain in such a mode as will guide the fertilizers from above the farm down upon all poor spots below and enrich them.

Climate has a controlling influence upon vegetation and the capa-, bility of any section for abundant production; and when we look to the causes which modify the climate of any locality, we find them to be mostly geological. Latitude has some influence upon climate, but other causes have much more. The height of mountains, and the proximity to or remoteness from large bodies of water, have a great influence. Extremes of heat and cold are prevented by the more uniform temperature of an ocean; hence, the further from an ocean or sea, the colder in winter and the hotter in summer; and the higher up above the level of the sea the colder, and the nearer the level of the sea the warmer. But the relative positions of the seas and continents will more or less modify the climate of any locality; and the currents of air and of the oceans have a considerable influence upon the climate of any place. And all these causes which regulate climate make up the measure of production in any section of country. Good geo

logical maps will enable the farmer to look to any part of the earth and judge the climate with tolerable accuracy.

There are many uses of the rocks of the earth, besides their general use in making soil. Some of them make lime for building purposesand for fertilizing land, as well as building-rock for fences and houses. They contain nearly all the ores of metals, as gold, silver, mercury, tin, copper, zinc and iron. All these are of use to the farmer, and he is dependent upon geology for their discovery and development. The most abundant and most valuable metal, iron, is just at this time a subject of absorbing interest to the farmer. The coal mines of England are so nearly exhausted, that the scarcity of coal used in making iron has doubled the price of iron even in the United States, and enhanced at the same rate every article made of iron. Hence the geologists of the world are now busy in hunting out the localities where iron ore and coal can be worked in close proximity. Already iron works are springing up in Tennessee like magic. Walden's Ridge, on the east side of the Cumberland Mountains, for at least one hundred miles in length, contains the very best iron ore and unlimited veins of coal in close proximity. New iron works are now going up every week. In a few years Tennessee will make half the iron of the United States. There is every inducement to establish machine shops in the vicinity of the coal, to work the iron into all implements of agriculture and the trades. The whole eastern base of Walden's Ridge may soon become a large manufacturing city of millions of inhabitants. It may even rival Manchester in the future. The iron manufacture of Tennessee will be of great benefit to her farmers and all citizens. It will cheapen iron and every article made of iron, and furnish a market at home for a vast amount of farm products. It will set Tennesseans to manufacturing, on a large scale, many articles which can be made cheaper in the vicinity of coal. In providing coal, iron ore, forests of timber, and the best water-powers in the world, nature ordained that the Cumberland Mountain should become a great workshop; and geology has but recently begun to unfold those vast natural blessings. Tennessee farmers will reap the profits of feeding and clothing all the workmen employed in the iron works and machine shops of the mining region.

We have now specified enough relations of geology to the farm to convince every farmer, who desires to be convinced, that he is greatly dependent upon that science for success in his vocation. He has but to open his eyes and look around him to see the many objects with

which geology has blessed him. All of them are subjects of creation from the dust of the earth he tills, and reproductions according to the Divine preparations at the beginning of all earthly things. The light that shows him his way, the water he drinks, the electricity that warns him in the clouds, the hills and the valleys, the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which warm, feed and clothe him, are all the results of primary creation and of many subsequent changes, transformations and reproductions, according to the Divine geology. They are all blessings offered to the farmers of the earth, upon the condition that they accept them and learn how to use and enjoy them.

CHAPTER V.

SOILS.

The soils of every state constitute its principal agricultural wealth, and lie at the foundation of all durable prosperity. However rich a country may be in minerals, its independence cannot be maintained without a sufficiency of fertile soils to produce food enough to subsist its population. In times of peace, a state dependent upon its manufactures may enjoy a flourishing prosperity, and even grow opulent, by bartering a portion of its manufactured products for the necessaries of life, but in a condition of hostilities it quickly yields to the overpowering advantages of a nation capable of subsisting upon the products grown within its limits. Many instances are recorded, both in profane and sacred history, where the question of food decided great national contests; and the intelligent reader will not forget that wellknown case, recorded in the Bible, where Tyre and Sidon were compelled to make an ignominious treaty with King Herod, "because their country was nourished by the king's country.”

Political economists have long since ascertained that population increases directly as the quantity of food, other things being equal; and that of two countries, one of which has an abundance of cheap food and the other in which food is scarce and dear, the population of the former increases more rapidly than in the latter. Now, if in our condition population is wealth, and cheap food is the necessary antecedent to population, it follows that the highest ends of enlightened statesmanship should be to produce an abundance of the means of subsistence by the preservation of the fertility of the soil.

In the foregoing chapter on climatology it has been shown, by facts deduced from a long series of observations, that the climate of Tennessee is of that peculiar character and excellence which produces the