ESSAYS 483 



examined the crops is all one way, and is extremely favourable. These experts 

 include representatives of several foreign Governments, of several Colonial 

 Governments, of the Indian Government, of our own Government, of important 

 newspapers, as well as men who are distinguished in the world of agriculture, and 

 whose names are widely known as experts on this subject. 



The various Government representatives will of course report to their re- 

 spective Governments, and it would not be becoming of me to forestall their 

 reports, though in several cases the general trend, and even the specific recom- 

 mendations, have been communicated to me without any injunction as to secrecy ; 

 but I am violating no confidence when I say that, so far as they are known to 

 me — and only one gentleman carried official reticence to the point of giving no 

 indication either way — they are uniformly favourable, and for the most even 

 enthusiastic. 



The differences between the crops grown from the treated and those grown 

 from the untreated seed are manifold, and it is important to remember that in 

 every case the treated and the untreated seed were taken from the same bulk, were 

 sown on the same land, in the same field, at the same time, were subjected to 

 the same cultivation, were examined at the same time, and, those that are reaped, 

 reaped on the same day. It is important also to bear in mind that in all the cases 

 to which reference is made here the crops were grown by practical agriculturists 

 under ordinary farming conditions, for their own satisfaction, and with a view to 

 the adoption or rejection of the electrified seed in future years. Such tests have 

 not the rigorous scientific exactitude of tests made by scientific experts at 

 experimental stations, but they are not less trustworthy as guides to the practical 

 farmer. Experiments in the scientific manner have been carried out at five or six 

 experimental stations, but the reports are not yet to hand, and therefore cannot be 

 given here. 



A practical agriculturist who has spent his life in farming can estimate within 

 a small margin of error, by mere inspection of a growing crop of grain immediately 

 before harvest, how many bushels per acre the crop will yield. The estimate 

 seems to the non-expert a risky one, and one likely to be falsified by the threshing 

 machine ; but in practice it is not found to be so. The flair of the farmer in 

 scenting the yield of his crop is analogous to the tactus eruditus of the physician, 

 to the judgment of the cloth merchant as to the wearing quality of a cloth, to 

 that of a wine merchant as to the value of a fine wine, or that of a tea-taster as 

 to the proper blend of varieties of leaf. These things are not to be measured 

 or expressed in accurate figures. They are personal judgments, made possible by 

 long experience and attention based upon native capacity. Yet great trades are 

 built up upon them, and serious errors are almost unknown. Such is the skill of 

 the expert farmer in gauging the yield of his crops. The Government has such 

 reliance on his skill that it publishes every year the probable yield of the harvest 

 or ever a field has been reaped, and the estimate is never much astray. 



The first and most important difference between the crops grown from 

 electrified seed and those grown from unelectrified is - the increase in the yield of 

 the former. Estimated in the way above described, half a dozen or more experts 

 have agreed that crops they have inspected have shown a difference of from eight 

 to twelve bushels per acre. In the case of wheat, this means a difference of from 

 2 5 to 37 per cent. Estimates made of other crops by experts inspecting singly 

 have been in some cases less, in other cases more than this, but probably, as far 

 as can be judged from the reports that are as yet to hand, the figures mentioned 

 represent about the average, 



