AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 



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the unmanured with the manured plats. But in order to get at 

 the value, I must deduct the variation of the unmanured plats. 

 We can 011I3- make approximations toward accuracy, make the 

 exp triments as accurate as we will. If we have the experiments 

 tried under the game conditions in different localities, we have the 

 means of comparing- them. I have been for years collecting dif- 

 ferent experiments for the purpose of comparing, in order to get 

 some underlying principle, and my difficulty is here : each one is 

 tried in just a little different manner from the other, and there is no 

 chance to compare them. I attempted a comparison of Lawes and 

 Gilbert's feeding experiments with my own. He took pigs nearly 

 grown up, and fed them for eight weeks ; we took young pigs but 

 an hour old, and raised them, first feeding them milk and then 

 corn meal. We got better results, so far as the feed was con- 

 cerned. When we took corn meal, we did not trv all the different 

 kinds, but confined our attention to milk and corn meal. When 

 I came to compare the result, they differed materially ; yet, not- 

 withstanding his experiments were tried in England and ours 

 here, and he had corn meal that was imported, I found a very 

 marked agreement. They differed, and yet they agreed in princi- 

 ple. They agreed in this : that the animals consumed more in 

 proportion to their weight in the ealier stages of the experiment, 

 and gave a greater return for the food consumed, than afterward: 

 They are experiments wide apart, and each taken by itself would 

 be, perhaps, of little value, but together they corroborate one 

 another. 



It, will not answer to experiment for the sake of our bread and 

 butter. We must go at it as earnest scientific men, seeking to 

 develop the truth, and let it make no difference who is pleased or 

 displeased with the result. I know that farmers demand of the 

 agricultural colleges impossibilities; I know they are expecting 

 immediate results. A person said to me, two years ago, "I do 

 not think much of your agricultural colleges." I said, " I am not 

 surprised." He said, "Why?" I said, ''because you are ex- 

 pecting something impossible from it. You think we claim we 

 can take a green boy out of the city, knowing nothing about it, 

 and give him a little agricultural chemistry and physiology, and 

 then turn him out qualified to instruct old farmers." He said that 

 was about it. I told him we believed and claimed nothing of the 

 kind. Agriculture must be studied, and our rules must be based 

 upon experience. 



