242 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Curtis and Lewis at the meeting of the Vermont Dairymen's Asso- 

 ciation, last year, together with a paper on the Sugar Beet as an 

 article of cattle food, by Mr. Lane of Cornwall, Vermont. 



The Needs op the Dairy. 



BY T. D. CURTIS. 



The objects of this Association I understand to be, to improve 

 the dairy interest. In this, and in every other well-directed 

 effort for improvement, there should be no local jealousies, no 

 personal rivalries, but cordial good will and earnest co-operation. 

 Let each freely contribute his mite and avail himself of every op- 

 portunity to assist in colling on the car of progress, and himself 

 and the world cannot fail to be the better for it. 



Practice and Theory must go Together. If we would make the 

 most rapid and substantial improvement in any department, prac- 

 tice and theory must go together. They have remained too long 

 unwedded ; they should never be divorced. Too much practice 

 without theory or a knowledge of principle to guide it, and too 

 much theory without practice to test it, arc alike fatal to progress. 

 The one should' be made to assist the other. United, they are un- 

 erring ; divided, both are liable to lead astray. Theory is of no 

 value until it is reduced to practice ; and practice is often not 

 only erroneous but even pernicious when not guided by true 

 theory. Both may be right without their ever having been 

 coupled ; but they lack the element of certainty which a union 

 .■would give tnem, and therefore have to be. taken on faith, instead 

 of on knowledge drawn from actual experiment. To make the 

 way clear and certain, our practice and our theory must go hand 

 in hand. Our theory must guide our practice, and our practice 

 must support our theory. 



More Brain and less Muscle. At present, most of our practice 

 is like the Irishman's fiddling. It is told of the violinist, Ole Bull, 

 that in his travels he came upon a group of jolly Irish peasants; 

 They were dancing to the music produced by horse-hair and cat- 

 gut in the hands of a burl}- son of Erin, who played with unusual 

 animation. Struck with his manner, at a pause in the dance the 

 great Norwegian fiddler approached the great Irish fiddler, and, 

 bowing gracefully, asked : " My friend, do you play by ear or by 

 note ?" Drawing himself up and looking puzzled, Pat replied, 

 with great dignity : " I fiddle by main strength, be jabers V 



