LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



to the policy of government. Under the 

 forms of diverse institutions, Professor Amos 

 seeks to trace the tendencies and influences 

 that are at work for good or for evil, and 

 by which the value of the accompanying 

 forms must be judged. The book, in the 

 nature of things, can not be as spicy as a 

 treatise on local politics, appealing to the 

 bias and prejudice of patriotic feeling, but 

 just for this reason its influence will be salu- 

 tary and wholesome. We greatly need that 

 catholicity of view in dealing with political 

 subjects which it is the object of science to 

 illustrate and enforce. 



Description of Houghton Farm by H. E. 

 A. ; with experiments on Indian Corn, 

 1880-81, by Manly Miles, Director of 

 Experiments. With a Summary of the 

 Experiments with Wheat for Forty 

 Years at Rothamsted. Cambridge : 

 Printed at the Riverside Press. Pp. 75. 



Experimental scientific agriculture 

 anything truly entitled to the name is 

 perhaps one of the most difficult things that 

 a man can undertake. Experimental sci- 

 ence, anyhow earnestly pursued, is the hard- 

 est kind of work. Mere experiments are, of 

 course, easy enough, and it is easy to parade 

 their results and talk about new discoveries, 

 of which people generally know nothing. 

 But to make experimental investigations 

 tributary to any real advance of knowledge, 

 to get new and valuable results which will 

 stand, or to give greater precision and trust- 

 worthiness to accepted conclusions, is as far 

 as possible from easy, and is, indeed, so 

 difficult as to be but rarely attained. It is 

 quite a mistake to suppose that laboratories 

 grind out new truth with the regularity of 

 a flouring-mill. Elaborate experiments may 

 go on for years, and nothing come of them 

 worth preserving. It is exactly this diffi- 

 culty in getting it that makes scientific truth 

 so precious. It is like diamond-digging, 

 only the " finds " are much less frequent, 

 and infinitely more valuable. 



But, if in each of the sciences, with per- 

 fected equipments of research and a com- 

 paratively narrow field, it is so hard to add 

 anything new to the stock of knowledge, 

 how much more difficult must it be when 

 the attack is made upon a whole group ot 

 mutually dependent sciences ! The farm, 

 taken as an arena of experiment, is itself a 



congeries of laboratories. The phenomena 

 involved are physical, chemical, geological, 

 meteorological, and broadly biological that 

 is, embracing the economy of vegetal and 

 animal life, from mildews to fruit-orchards, 

 from insects to vertebrates. To know the 

 nature of the soil, the nature of the air, the 

 nature of fertilizers, the nature of plants 

 and animals of all kinds, so as to study them 

 in their vital connections by experimental 

 processes that shall bring out valuable and 

 lasting results, is hence, as we have said, 

 one of the most formidable of tasks. 



In the first place, there will arise all the 

 difficulties encountered in the pursuit of the 

 special sciences, with the disadvantage that 

 the means of investigation are very rarely 

 so perfect. But the peculiar and most for- 

 midable difficulty of agricultural science 

 arises from the fact that the farm is itself 

 a grand laboratory of nature, which imposes 

 its own conditions of inquiry. And the 

 first of these conditions is, that Nature must 

 be taken at her own pace. Her processes 

 go on at their own rates, and can not be 

 much forced. The natural changes in- 

 volved in agricultural effects proceed slow- 

 ly, and the experimenter must conform his 

 plans to this fact. The changes of soil, the 

 action of fertilizers, the improvement of 

 crops, the culture of stock, involve slowly 

 accumulating results, require time, and, in 

 addition to knowledge and skill on the part 

 of the investigator, he must also have pa- 

 tience and perseverance, remembering that 

 the fruits of his efforts belong to the future. 

 Agricultural science, if honest, can not 

 strike for immediate results ; that scientific 

 farming which demands something to dis- 

 play promptly, like prize-cattle and prize- 

 crops, or that seeks to astonish the neigh- 

 borhood, is a sham, and only brings an 

 excellent thing into unmerited disgrace. 

 This is what must be, and what is shown 

 by abundant experience. The farm estab- 

 lishments started by rich men for the pro- 

 motion of agricultural science, and which 

 have come to nothing, may be counted by 

 hundreds. On the contrary, the one which 

 has a world-wide reputation for having 

 made the largest contribution to agricultu- 

 ral progress is working by a system which 

 requires a long series of years to develop its 

 results. The Rothamsted farm of Messrs. 



