370 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



THE NATURAL SCIENCES AND THE FARMER. 



BY ED. P. JOHNSON. 



In my brief essay I shall endeavor to show that the natural sci- 

 ences are not only an accomplishment, when a thorono-h knowledge 

 of them is possessed by a farmer, but a complete knojvledge of their 

 fundamental and unchangeable principles is essential to his ultimate 

 success in the noble avocation he has chosen. 



Many men seem to be practical and successful farmers who have 

 but little '"book learning." We admit that such semis to be the 

 case, but a careful investigation of facts convinces us that what at 

 first sight seems to be a contradiction of my first statement, is really 

 one of the strongest proofs of its immutable truth. What these men 

 are now masters of by means of a lifetime experience could have been 

 acquired in five years — two years given to learning the scientific 

 theories, as laid down by men of undisputable veracity, and three 

 years to their practical application, and I maintain they will be as 

 thoroughly well informed in the practical duties of a farmer's life as 

 any successful old fogy who has spent, not five, but fifty-five years 

 in acquiring a practical knowledge of the same thing. Our lives are 

 much too short to allow any waste of time in consummating any 

 given undertaking. 



It would appear most foolish to those who are living in this 

 wonderful age of improvements to see a man forging nails on a l^lack- 

 smith's anvil, and yet this was not long since the common way. 

 Anything that is a waste of time, " that solemn inheritance to which 

 every man, woman, and child is born heir," is not only foolish, but 

 most injurious to permanent progress. Let us learn all useful science 

 in the least possible time, that our leisure, thus acquired, may be 

 given to some other ennobling purpose. 



How many uneducated farmers, do you suppose, are cognizant of 

 the fact that the order riimlnantia, including in its various families 

 the cattle and sheep which he sees every day. has four stomachs in- 

 stead of one, as is the case with himself, or with his domestic animals 

 of the order parlnjdennafa^ viz: his horses, mules, or hogs. He will 

 readily understand that they each, the pachiidermufa and the rnmi- 

 nantia, need a difEerent kind of food. Well, we suppose that his 

 father or his older brother had in times past fed them so and so in 

 his presence, and he, as a creature of imitation, and in that respect 

 nearly allied to the monkey tribe, feeds them, and perhaps success- 

 fully, too, as his father or brother did in days gone by. Would it 

 not be a source of pleasure to him to know that one has four stomachs, 

 adapted to slowly digesting and absorbing, and a system that will as- 

 similate and circulate the nutriment properties of hay and fodder. 



