443 



condition to produce crops to which it was naturally unfitted. Farmers 

 who will thus avail themselves of scientific jvidgments of the capabili- 

 ties and the deficiencies of the soil which they have to deal with, will be 

 saved from many an expensive and unsuccessful experiment, as to the 

 crops which they can, most profitably cultivate, the kind of treatment 

 which may be necessary to prevent exhaustion, and the specific manures 

 which should be applied, to supply natural defects in the soil, to keep it 

 in heart, or to restore it if exhausted by ill advised and unthrifty cultiva- 

 tion. 



Agriculture is eminently an experimental art, and past experience col- 

 lected, compared, classified ; reasoned out into conclusions and general- 

 ized into laws, constitutes the body of agricultural science as we now 

 have it ; which the analysis and the tests of the laboratory render of 

 cheap and discriminate application to the uses of the farmer. Without 

 these lio-hts and helps, agriculture may continue to be practised, as here- 

 tofore, on traditional maxims ; or, if it aim at higher conditions, must 

 accomplish its end by a grosser outlay of means, and at comparatively- 

 uncertain returns. 



The functions of the Agricultural College, however, should not termi- 

 nate here. It is fairly to be expected of it that it should undertake the 

 great work of extending the boundaries of knowledge available to the 

 uses of the farmer. It should be the great store-house of statistical in- 

 formation, the watch-tower of varied and discriminating observation. It 

 should be diligent in the collation of facts, and in the development of the 

 lessons of value they are calculated to teach ; and should bring, as far 

 as practicable, every principle, thus reasoned out, to the test of rigid and 

 well guarded experiment. 



It is here that the important agency of the experimental farm, as part 

 and parcel of the Agricultural College, is brought distinctly to view. It 

 is true, indeed, that every farmer may be an experimenter, and that every 

 departure from routine cultivation is an experiment. But if all farmers 

 were experimenters, our agricultural accounts would, in the agregate, 

 foot up disastrously at the close of the year. Random experiment 

 accomplishes but little, and that little at a large comparative outlay. It 

 is a species of lottery in which some prizes are drawn, but the blanks are 

 legion. Science must guide the hand of experiment if it is to be intelli- 

 gently and economically done. 



