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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Lawes and Gilbert has been forty years in 

 getting under way, and its most important 

 results are still matters of hope and belong 

 to the future. This is in accordance with 

 the spirit and requirements of true scientific 

 agriculture. 



We have been led to these remarks by 

 an examination of the pamphlet before us, 

 which reports the initial steps of a new 

 American attempt at scientific agriculture. 

 Six hundred acres of Orange County land, 

 named Houghton Farm, and owned by a 

 wealthy manufacturer, Mr. Lawson Valen- 

 tine, have been devoted by him to " a long- 

 cherished plan for doing something toward 

 the progress of American agriculture." The 

 proprietor resolved that to attain this ob- 

 ject he would constitute " a scientific depart- 

 ment devoted to agricultural investigation 

 and experiment, and that such department 

 be of the highest order " ; and that " the 

 farm operations be carried on in accordance 

 with the best-known methods and under 

 the best possible organization and manage- 

 ment, with a view of educating and en- 

 lightening others by furnishing valuable 

 examples and results in practical agricul- 

 ture." A good deal of hard thinking and 

 difficult work was here laid out for some- 

 body, and very naturally Mr. Valentine, a 

 business man, cast about for able help in 

 carrying on his enterprise. He had the 

 good fortune to secure the services of Dr. 

 Manly Miles, of the Michigan Agricultural 

 College, a man well prepared for original 

 agricultural investigations, to take the di- 

 rection of the farm experiments. It was 

 proposed to attempt for Indian corn in this 

 country what had been done for wheat by 

 Lawes and Gilbert in England that is, to 

 carry its cultivation through a course of 

 years on assigned plots of ground, for the 

 purpose of determining the quality and 

 quantity of the product with different fer- 

 tilizers, different modes of treatment, etc. 

 The pamphlet before us contains Dr. Miles's 

 report on the work of 1S80-'81. This re- 

 port lays down the method to be pursued, 

 and embodies the first results. It indicates 

 the plans of drainage adopted, gives the 

 previous history of the plots of ground, 

 describes the selection of seed, and gives 

 the carefully tabulated results from unma- 

 nured plots, plots treated with farm-yard 



manure, and a considerable number of the 

 most important artificial fertilizers. The 

 mechanical operations of culture arc care- 

 fully described, the peculiarities of the sea- 

 son recorded, and there is a minute descrip- 

 tion of the precautions taken to determine 

 accurately the quantitative results of the 

 matured crops. The main results, of course, 

 assume a tabular numerical form, but Dr. 

 Miles has also introduced very successfully 

 the graphic method of conveying generali- 

 zations and comparisons to the eye by means 

 of diagrams. There are all the indications 

 in this report of intelligent, conscientious, 

 painstaking, and persevering work. The 

 document is undoubtedly valuable for the 

 positive information it contains, although 

 from the nature of the case the first results 

 of such a trial-scries of experiments must 

 have the lowest value of any terms of the 

 series. Single experiments in agriculture 

 are worth but little, and only become valu- 

 able as they are verified. Time and con- 

 tinued research are indispensable for the 

 elimination of error. 



No one can carefully examine this report 

 without recognizing that the experiments 

 were intelligently planned and thoroughly 

 executed as far as they went, giving prom- 

 ise that by rigorously carrying out the sys- 

 tem adopted still more valuable results will 

 be attained. We have been informed that, 

 when Dr. Miles undertook the work, he did 

 so under the explicit condition that he 

 should have charge of the experiments for 

 at least a period of ten years, that time 

 being indispensable to achieve anything 

 worthy the name of a contribution to agri- 

 cultural science. Yet, after a year of pre- 

 paration, and two seasons of systematic 

 work, presto, the director of experiments 

 at Houghton Farm is found installed as 

 professor in the Agricultural College at 

 Amherst, Massachusetts. What there was 

 about these initiative experiments on In- 

 dian corn which Mr. Valentine found un- 

 satisfactory does not appear in the docu- 

 ment before us ; but we have heard that the 

 director of experiments was complained of 

 as " slow." This is probably because strik- 

 ing results did not come out fast enough to 

 suit the enterprising proprietor ; but, if so, 

 it docs not augur well for the usefulness 

 of Houghton Farm. That highest order of 



