294 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



lie on the surface always. It hides itself in the depths. It is to 

 be sought for with great patience, and with great care, and great 

 study. When it is found at last, be it after ever so long a search, 

 and after ever so great expense, it will richly reward the seeker. 

 Now, in the solution of the problems in agriculture, the discovery 

 of laws in agriculture — for I suppose that is the object of the 

 experiment, and not merely to gratify the chriosity of the experi- 

 menter, not merely to get at some half-way results, like weighing 

 a thing by taking it first in one hand and then in another, and then 

 giving a guess — it is possible to determine, approximately at least, 

 what are the facts, and ultimately to reach a law. 



What are the laws and forces which enter into any agricultural 

 product, animal or vegetable ? What if they are many and com- 

 plicated ? Are they more so than the forces that have entered 

 into the other results and deductions that men ultimately have 

 reached, and determined the laws of? We should remember this 

 thing: If we can get one single element reduced to \ts law — if we 

 can, in one single case, discover a law that is fixed and invariable, 

 and has the force of law in a multiplicity of things — we have put, 

 as it were, a streak of sunshine into it; we have got one fixed 

 element in the problem, and everything else will be more readily 

 solved. 



As far as Dr. Miles' experiments which he suggests, and very 

 wisely, in the matter of feeding, you can take simple corn in its 

 various forms, and, by a series of experiments carried out, you 

 can ultimately arrive at something like a law in regard to the 

 effects of feeding an animal on this one article of diet. May you 

 not ultimately reach a law of animal feeding, and growth, and 

 fattening, which you will carry elsewhere '/ The multiplicity of 

 forces that enter into these experiments, to my mind, only prove 

 this : the necessity of combination and co-operation. Suppose, 

 for instance, that the Agricultural College in this State would try' 

 certain experiments as carefully as we can. We are trying them 

 under a careful experimenter, who is present, and we may ulti- 

 mately, in the course of 3'ears, reach a conclusion, as we think. 

 Somebody in Pennsylvania tries the same set of experiments, and 

 he reaches a different result, revealing tons what we alone should 

 not have suspected, perhaps — that there were climatic differences, 

 or something that modified the result, and which therefore vitiated 

 our supposed law, and compelled us to start afresh before we 

 dared to publish the results of our experiments to the world, as 



